Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 21:24:46 +0000 () From: Carlos Amengual <amengual@sadeya.cesca.es> To: Piero Serini <piero@strider.ibenet.it> Cc: hostmaster@host.bemarnet.es, FreeBSD Questions List <Questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Problems with mail reception Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.91.951109194539.2787A-100000@blanco.sadeya.cesca.es> In-Reply-To: <199511091707.SAA27784@strider.ibenet.it>
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On Thu, 9 Nov 1995, Piero Serini wrote: > I keep this thread on -questions since we all see frequent ques- > tions about this matter, even if it's not strictly FreeBSD relat- > ed. > The "poor bored people" on this mailing list often receives email > asking how to configure sendmail. This discussion, IMHO, can only > help them to reply in the most correct way. This doesn't imply > *I* am right, it is my opinion that going deeply into this prob- > lem now will save a lot of future e-mails. I suggested to stop this as my intention was not to write a FAQ. There is already a FAQ about this, and unsurprisingly follows the lines you mentioned. This does not mean it to be the only way, and I suggested a different approach, that works on my machine and many others. I even was not giving too specific instructions to avoid that it could lead someone to do the wrong things, but instead requested the involved files for inspection. When someone requests help about sendmail here, the answer is always "get the O'Reilly book"; that's the safest general advice so, if you want to help further you need to be more specific and go to study particular situations. The sendmail FAQ is the only other option available, I think. So the interest of these messages is not necessarily high, from my point of view. The real point is that if you expect someone to configure his sendmail only with the advice that can be given in one of these mailing list messages, this is so useless or dangerous with m4 than with a SIMPLE sendmail.cf manipulation. > > As I mentioned, it is likely that many people will not have it, and > > Anybody can get it via anon ftp, you know. But need it always ? Not. > > most do not really need it to configure sendmail. If your existing > > sendmail.cf does things well for you, the temptation to "incrementally" > > modifying it is high, even if you have the m4 files at hand. > > The temptation to patch the kernel with 'dd' is also high :) I expected such a response. You are slightly exaggerated... I do know that sendmail.cf is more difficult to configure than a "hosts" file, say, but this does not mean that it cannot be done carefully enough. > You'll be surprised: here are excerpts from a masquerading cf file: "I am surprised": this is from the "poor man" sendmail.cf standard file that gets installed on /etc, except for the last UUCP records, I believe. > Moreover, you should know that a single line in a rewriting rule > is likely to have tremendous impact on your poor sendmail. And a fall from 100 meters even more. (now my turn exaggerating a bit) > The right way IMO is the way the author intended you to do things. The fact that Perl exists does not mean that you cannot write C code. > > I have never seen, in any book, that only m4 is correct. Every people I know > > deals directly with the sendmail.cf file. The real point is if you are > > reasonably confident of what you are doing and, finally, if things work > > after all. It is not so hard to add rules and mailers by hand in the raw > > file. > > ORA Sendmail book, page 325: > "Most configuration commands are so complex that each requires a > chapter or two of his own. A few, however, are simple. In the > balance of this chap- ter, we will describe the simple ones: com- > ments, continuation lines, and the V(version) command." > > ORA Sendmail book, page 731: > "V8 sendmail provides an easy way to create a custom configura- > tion file for your site. In the cf subdirectory of the source > distribution, you will find a file named README. It contains > easy-to-understand, step-by-step instructions." > > The book itself is 792 pages long. It devotes 264 pages (323 to > 587) to sendmail.cf and its internals, and 21 pages (731 to 752) > to m4. > > I think the above proves beyond any reasonable doubt, thy honor, > that the *easiest* way to configure sendmail is using the m4 ap- So you admit it is not the only correct. > proach. In Computer Science, given the same result, the easiest > approach is the correct one. If you fully apply this, throw away FreeBSD and get Windows NT (no cries, please). And in real Science, things simply follow the most direct path. (at this point of our "interesting" discussion, it's like if I could hear the mailing list people sleeping...) A popular phrase to end: "the difference between computer scientists and the other scientists is that CSs solve yesterday's problems with tomorrow machines, while the others solve today's problems with yesterday machines" (or something similar). PS: I'd like not to get stuck in a discussion about the sex of angels. Please let us stop it here.
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