Date: Wed, 02 May 2001 12:23:31 -0600 From: Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ab.ca> To: Brian Candler <B.Candler@pobox.com> Cc: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: conf/26774: Installation of rmail, even without sendmail Message-ID: <200105021823.f42INVg25793@orthanc.ab.ca> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 02 May 2001 10:50:02 PDT." <200105021750.f42Ho2N53957@freefall.freebsd.org>
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>>>>> "Brian" == Brian Candler <B.Candler@pobox.com> writes:
Brian> Personally I think it should be the responsibility of a
Brian> well-behaved MTA to provide an rmail workalike, and if the
Brian> user specifies NO_SENDMAIL then they really don't want any
Brian> part of sendmail, including its rmail (which is arguably
Brian> sendmail-specific anyway)
rmail (as part of UUCP) predates sendmail (and probably deliver). In
the absence of an MTA (e.g. 7th Edition) rmail itself provided the
simple next-hop forwarding capability required to move the mail along
its path. With the introduction of MTA functionality into UNIX the
MTAs provided their own rmail that let the MTA hook itself into
the UUCP transport, primarily to allow for local delivery, but
also to provide transport gatewaying and "intelligent" routing.
So what does NO_SENDMAIL mean? I think it means "don't build the MTA
software provided by sendmail.org." I don't think it means "don't
build an MTA." The problem here is that current rmail's assume there
will always be an MTA present, however there has never been a
standardized command-line API for interacting with the local MTA.
(The /usr/{lib,libexec,sbin}/sendmail one is about as close to a
defacto standard as you can get.) We have mailwrapper, however
I don't think that's the correct solution. The common sendmail
command line interface just can't cope with things like DSNs,
message tracking, and authentication. We need to come up with
a brand new command line API for talking to the MTA (and MSA).
Nobody seems to want to do this, though.
--lyndon
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