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Date:      Fri, 20 Mar 1998 10:34:58 +0100
From:      Jos Backus <J.G.E.Backus@urc.tue.nl>
To:        Yarema <yds@dppl.com>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Sendmail going commercial, and ?
Message-ID:  <19980320103458.B8991@asterix.urc.tue.nl>
In-Reply-To: <019101bd5380$00233ab0$1f40e6cd@ichiban.ingress.com>; from Yarema on Thu, Mar 19, 1998 at 04:43:05PM -0500
References:  <019101bd5380$00233ab0$1f40e6cd@ichiban.ingress.com>

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On Thu, Mar 19, 1998 at 04:43:05PM -0500, Yarema wrote:
> Qmail is a great MTA, but in no way does it qualify as a drop in replacement
> for sendmail.

Hm...

> One, it does not deliver to /var/mail, only to $HOME.

Delivery to /var/mail has security problems, but despite this qmail can easily
be configured to do it. See ftp://koobera.math.uic.edu/www/qmail/vsm.txt.

> That's a good thing for security, but lousy if you have lots of email users
> without a home directory.

You can deal with these in an even more flexible manner using the qmail-users
mechanism.

> qmail by default does not use .forward,

Right. There is the dot-forward package for those who want/need it. But .qmail
files have much richer (and more well-defined) semantics than .forward files.

> /etc/aliases

qmsmac handles these, in a more generic fashion even.

The bottom line is that qmail's design is very modular, which explains its
flexibility.

It is also easy to set up, which can be a boon to novices.

> and I don't know the extent of it's sendmail command line compatibility.

I'd rate it being pretty good and sufficient for my needs...

> On the other hand qmail does have a good license:
> ftp://koobera.math.uic.edu/www/softwarelaw.html :) Or at least I like the
> authors interpretation of the law.

:-)

> Rather than replacing sendmail I would prefer to see /etc/rc* files modified
> in such a way as to make it easier to replace it with another MTA in a clean
> fashion. i.e. without having to hack the /etc/rc* files too much.

A good idea at any rate.

Cheers,
-- 
Jos Backus                     _/  _/_/_/        "Reliability means never
                              _/  _/   _/         having to say you're sorry."
                             _/  _/_/_/                -- D. J. Bernstein
                        _/  _/  _/    _/
jbackus@urc.tue.nl      _/_/   _/_/_/             use Std::Disclaimer;

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