Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
2009/10/29 Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com: On Thu, 29 Oct 2009, Ruben de Groot wrote: sendmail is NOT a legacy application. It's actively being developed ON FreeBSD. Actually, the maintainer(s) are doing a great job Bullshit. Why does sendmail call up the internet during boot? If it needs to know who it is, why can't it look in hosts? Since it cannot be trusted to send mail, what does it need to know from the internet? It has been horribly broken for the 15 years or so that I have run FBSD, and this m4 stuff is a pile of crap. There is no documentation whatsoever. Unless you buy a book from O'Reilly and line the pockets of the maintainer(s). Why can't it be a option to configure the system without it? Not any money in that, is there? What's wrong with 'this m4 stuff'? The documentation can be found in one of many of these links: http://www.google.com/search?q=sendmail.mc Chris -- A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in a mailing list? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Thursday 29 October 2009 21:58:54 Lars Eighner wrote: On Thu, 29 Oct 2009, Ruben de Groot wrote: sendmail is NOT a legacy application. It's actively being developed ON FreeBSD. Actually, the maintainer(s) are doing a great job Bullshit. Why does sendmail call up the internet during boot? If it needs to know who it is, why can't it look in hosts? Since it cannot be trusted to send mail, what does it need to know from the internet? It has been horribly broken for the 15 years or so that I have run FBSD, and this m4 stuff is a pile of crap. There is no documentation whatsoever. Unless you buy a book from O'Reilly and line the pockets of the maintainer(s). Why can't it be a option to configure the system without it? Not any money in that, is there? This is exactly the sort of ill-informed religious rant that always comes up when sendmail is discussed, and makes me wonder why some people are so vehemently anti-sendmail that they feel the need to say things which are only marginally true if that. My laptop boots quite happily without an Internet connection, so it's simply not true to say that sendmail always calls the Internet during boot. Have a look at /usr/share/sendmail/cf/README, and at /usr/src/contrib/sendmail/doc/op (where you can make the sendmail operations guide in a variety of formats including pdf) and you'll realise that your claim that there's no documentation is also flat-out false. I've got the Bat book (in fact I've got *looks at bookshelf* the 2nd and 3rd editions). I almost never look at them any more because I can find what I need in the documentation provided with sendmail. No-one is asking you to use sendmail, or even to like it, but please don't lie about it; and if you don't want sendmail in the base system, do as several people have suggested, pull your finger out and do the work to fix it. Jonathan (Just in case, I should probably point out explicitly that, as usual, I don't speak for my employer: this is an entirely personal opinion). ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
In freebsd-questions Digest, Vol 282, Issue 14, Message 14 On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:58:54 -0500 (CDT) Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com wrote: On Thu, 29 Oct 2009, Ruben de Groot wrote: sendmail is NOT a legacy application. It's actively being developed ON FreeBSD. Actually, the maintainer(s) are doing a great job Bullshit. :) IYNSHO. Why does sendmail call up the internet during boot? If it needs to know who it is, why can't it look in hosts? See the section: WHO AM I? in /usr/src/contrib/sendmail/cf/README (assuming you haven't deleted the documentation from your system) Since it cannot be trusted to send mail, what does it need to know from the internet? The first clause reflects an opinion you apparently formed many years ago from which you seem determined not to let any contrary indications dissuade you. I certainly trust sendmail to send mail - who to accept mail from is always the far greater issue - though after only 11+ years using FreeBSD, I clearly haven't your depth of experience. It has been horribly broken for the 15 years or so that I have run FBSD, What was the last version of sendmail you actually used? Sure 8.8 was a bear to configure against spam back in '98; I almost succumbed to buying the book back then, but always found what I needed here, by searching or at sendmail.org. Since FreeBSD ~4.5 I've done just fine using 'make'. (cd /etc/mail; ee access; make maps) is my usual extent of maintenance. and this m4 stuff is a pile of crap. Works here :) though I just let 'make' hide all of the gritty stuff. There is no documentation whatsoever. Re-sup your sources? There's plenty here, and the abovementioned README contains just about everything I've ever needed to configure sendmail. Mail is never going to be any trivial one-conf-fits-all service and requires some study, with at least a slightly open attitude. Unless you buy a book from O'Reilly and line the pockets of the maintainer(s). Why can't it be a option to configure the system without it? Not any money in that, is there? Maybe a systems programming background helped, but since ~'02 I've felt no further need to explore the intricacies of sendmail.cf tinkering. Others here affirm that you can indeed configure FreeBSD not to use sendmail, or any mailer, but I've never had a need so can't comment. There's an old folk song you may have come across that pretty well covers the best approach to fixing any such perceived brokenness: http://www.songsforteaching.com/folk/theresaholeinthebucket.htm cheers, Ian ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
MAKE THE PAIN STOP. Seriously, read back in the friggin' mailing list archives. None of y'all are going to say anything that hasn't been said before. Or don't, and just prove how valuable your time isn't by wasting it arguing about something that everyone else is just rolling their eyes at and ignoring, as they've seen it all before. This bikeshed is old and tired. I don't want to paint it. I want to drown it in lighter fluid and set it on fire. -- randi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Fri, 30 Oct 2009, Ian Smith wrote: Why does sendmail call up the internet during boot? If it needs to know who it is, why can't it look in hosts? See the section: WHO AM I? in /usr/src/contrib/sendmail/cf/README (assuming you haven't deleted the documentation from your system) Or did not install the src. WHO AM I? doesn't answer the question of how to turn off calling up the internet on every boot. But let's see how far we can get in the README divert(0) Evidently doesn't really matter. VERSIONID(`SCCS or RCS version id') Evidently doesn't really matter. OSTYPE(`hpux9')dnl You must specify an OSTYPE to properly configure things such as the pathname of the help and status files, the flags needed for the local mailer, and other important things. If you omit it, you will get an error when you try to build the configuration. Look at the ostype directory for the list of known operating system types. Okay, let's look in ostype directory: freebsd4, freebsd5, freebsd6. But wait! on freshly cvsupped source for 7.2-p4, freebsd7 is not a recognized ostype according to the ostype directory. It says the configuration won't build without. No point in going on from here if my ostype doesn't exist. And it looks like if I could get past here, I'd be back editing the source every time I upgraded the system because for some reason, after all these years, there cannot be a plain English configuration file in /etc such every other service has managed to come up with. -- Lars Eighner http://www.larseighner.com/index.html 8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
At 02:50 AM 10/30/2009, Randi Harper wrote: This bikeshed is old and tired. I don't want to paint it. I want to drown it in lighter fluid and set it on fire. I've never seen a bike shed. Unless perhaps it had a furry seat cover. --Brett Glass ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
pete wright wrote: On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 7:14 PM, Frank Shute fr...@shute.org.uk wrote: FreeBSD: ? I can't think of a good reason why FreeBSD should get rid of it. Saying that, it would be neat if it was taken out of base and replaced with something minimal that could cope with the demands of cron and not much else. Then the user is expected to install a MTA of their choice out of ports. That would mean less code in base and fewer security advisories. yea i like where you are going with this frank - perhaps when opensmtpd is done we'll be in the position to import this into the freebsd tree? it sounds like it might fit the bill :) But, do we actually need an MTA in the base? The only arguments I have seen in this thread are: - because it's been there since the beginning of history - because cron requires it to send the daily reports For the first, that may be so, but what was a good idea at the beginning of history may not be so today. The argument is invalid. For the benefit of the project, it should continuously be considered if legacy code can be removed and offered as an optional component for those relying on it. For the second, honestly: If cron is the only application that requires an MTA then maybe it should be considered if that is a good solution. I think it is a very heavy requirement for what is otherwise very simple. If you deploy a SOHO network with FBSD at home, you may not use your own mailservice but depend on some other service. Then you likely don't read local mail regularly and it suffices for you to keep the output of cron in a plain text file in /var/log. Or you may have cron send mails to your mailservice. In either case, there is no need for an MTA like sendmail, you only need a simple client. If you deploy FBSD in larger networks, then you may opt for some other MTA. Let's face it, sendmail isn't exactly easy to setup for advanced features. And, you don't need an MTA on all systems, only on the mail gateway, other systems just need a mail client for cron - if you don't use some more advanced monitoring system, having a dedicated syslog server for example. It appears to me that having an MTA in base is obsolete. A simple client would do if anything at all. Further, if keeping an MTA costs resources in patching and testing for every new release, then it goes from being a remnant from history to slow down progress for the project. BR, Erik -- Erik Nørgaard Ph: +34.666334818/+34.915211157 http://www.locolomo.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:49:40 +0100, Erik Norgaard norga...@locolomo.org wrote: But, do we actually need an MTA in the base? The only arguments I have seen in this thread are: - because it's been there since the beginning of history - because cron requires it to send the daily reports For the first, that may be so, but what was a good idea at the beginning of history may not be so today. The argument is invalid. For the benefit of the project, it should continuously be considered if legacy code can be removed and offered as an optional component for those relying on it. For the second, honestly: If cron is the only application that requires an MTA then maybe it should be considered if that is a good solution. I think it is a very heavy requirement for what is otherwise very simple. Sendmail is a large program. Configuring Sendmail 15 years ago was arcane and difficult, to say the least. Nowadays it is easier than what it used to be, but it still isn't as easy as Postfix. What is nice about Sendmail today is that with minimal changes to a base FreeBSD installation (the rc.conf(5) variable called sendmail_enable and a SMART_HOST value in sendmail.mc) one can quickly get up and running with a local-only MTA that: - Supports message queuing for outgoing messages out of the box - Can deliver messages to local users out of the box - Can forward email to a mail relay, when the SMART_HOST option is enabled, and supports recent RFC - Does a reasonably good job at integrating with other tools (procmail, fetchmail, thunderbird, other local mailers) When compiled with the appropriate options Sendmail currently supports SASL and TLS too. So Sendmail is a pretty heavy-weight program, but it also supports a lot of features. A replacement that would merely support local delivery would be mostly ok for some users but then everyone who _needs_ the special stuff Sendmail can do now would have to install a port. Having to install a port is not necessarily a _bad_ thing. The laptop I am using to type this message has 822 ports installed. Another one would do no serious harm. If you deploy a SOHO network with FBSD at home, you may not use your own mailservice but depend on some other service. Then you likely don't read local mail regularly and it suffices for you to keep the output of cron in a plain text file in /var/log. Or you may have cron send mails to your mailservice. In either case, there is no need for an MTA like sendmail, you only need a simple client. [...] It appears to me that having an MTA in base is obsolete. A simple client would do if anything at all. Further, if keeping an MTA costs resources in patching and testing for every new release, then it goes from being a remnant from history to slow down progress for the project. Having a local MTA, even in a SOHO network may be useful. Instead of going through the same hoops to configure 4 different email clients, you can set up the local MTA and tell all your local mailer programs send any of your messages to `localhost' and they will be delivered as usual. Having an MTA in the base system may not be obsolete. Deciding _which_ MTA to integrate with the rest of FreeBSD is debatable and changes to what we have today have a better chance of being accepted if they also include at least some amount of patches for $NEWMTA. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
Giorgos Keramidas wrote: So Sendmail is a pretty heavy-weight program, but it also supports a lot of features. Which was the point, if the only process in base that requires some way to dump output other than send to syslog, is cron, then Sendmail is disproportionate solution for the problem. A replacement that would merely support local delivery would be mostly ok for some users but then everyone who _needs_ the special stuff Sendmail can do now would have to install a port. I don't argue for a replacement but for the elimination. Install a port if you need an MTA, you're happy with that way for so many other standard services. It appears to me that having an MTA in base is obsolete. A simple client would do if anything at all. Further, if keeping an MTA costs resources in patching and testing for every new release, then it goes from being a remnant from history to slow down progress for the project. Having a local MTA, even in a SOHO network may be useful. Instead of going through the same hoops to configure 4 different email clients, you can set up the local MTA and tell all your local mailer programs send any of your messages to `localhost' and they will be delivered as usual. There are tons of things that may be useful for somebody on a SOHO network. I don't agree you need an MTA when the only application requiring is cron. The default should be to dump cron output to a file. No need to setup 4 mail clients. Only if you want to send the output to a remote address would you need to do this. Having an MTA in the base system may not be obsolete. The option remains to install from ports as with so many other things. My concern is if some heavy legacy application, because of history or tradition, remains in base will draw resources from advancing in other areas that are much more relevant today. BR, Erik -- Erik Nørgaard Ph: +34.666334818/+34.915211157 http://www.locolomo.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 06:55:20PM +0100, Erik Norgaard typed: Giorgos Keramidas wrote: I don't argue for a replacement but for the elimination. Install a port if you need an MTA, you're happy with that way for so many other standard services. Isn't this going a little too far? What other posix systems ship whith no default MTA at all? Not many I would say. The default should be to dump cron output to a file. No need to setup 4 mail clients. Only if you want to send the output to a remote address would you need to do this. No need to setup mail clients? How about you having to create an infrastructure to parse all these files on your servers? I like the way it is: create an alias for root and be done with it. The option remains to install from ports as with so many other things. And many other things not. Or do you want to go the linux way: just a kernel and the rest in packages? I like a complete OS. My concern is if some heavy legacy application, because of history or tradition, remains in base will draw resources from advancing in other areas that are much more relevant today. sendmail is NOT a legacy application. It's actively being developed ON FreeBSD. Actually, the maintainer(s) are doing a great job and are definetely NOT drawing resources from anyone or anything else. These discussions are. Also the sources in /usr/src/contrib/sendmail/src are 2.2 MB. That's not heavy at all. Ruben ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:08:24 +0200 Giorgos Keramidas keram...@ceid.upatras.gr wrote: What is nice about Sendmail today is that with minimal changes to a base FreeBSD installation (the rc.conf(5) variable called sendmail_enable and a SMART_HOST value in sendmail.mc) one can quickly get up and running with a local-only MTA that: sendmail_enable exposes sendmail to the world. You don't need to set anything for a local relay. Having a local MTA, even in a SOHO network may be useful. Instead of going through the same hoops to configure 4 different email clients, you can set up the local MTA and tell all your local mailer programs send any of your messages to `localhost' and they will be delivered as usual. It's also potentially a useful interface for spammers and viruses that bypasses remote authentication, in particular if the MTA is misconfigured as an open-relay. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Thu, 29 Oct 2009, Ruben de Groot wrote: sendmail is NOT a legacy application. It's actively being developed ON FreeBSD. Actually, the maintainer(s) are doing a great job Bullshit. Why does sendmail call up the internet during boot? If it needs to know who it is, why can't it look in hosts? Since it cannot be trusted to send mail, what does it need to know from the internet? It has been horribly broken for the 15 years or so that I have run FBSD, and this m4 stuff is a pile of crap. There is no documentation whatsoever. Unless you buy a book from O'Reilly and line the pockets of the maintainer(s). Why can't it be a option to configure the system without it? Not any money in that, is there? -- Lars Eighner http://www.larseighner.com/index.html 8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 06:34:35PM +, RW wrote: On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:08:24 +0200 Giorgos Keramidas keram...@ceid.upatras.gr wrote: What is nice about Sendmail today is that with minimal changes to a base FreeBSD installation (the rc.conf(5) variable called sendmail_enable and a SMART_HOST value in sendmail.mc) one can quickly get up and running with a local-only MTA that: sendmail_enable exposes sendmail to the world. You don't need to set anything for a local relay. Having a local MTA, even in a SOHO network may be useful. Instead of going through the same hoops to configure 4 different email clients, you can set up the local MTA and tell all your local mailer programs send any of your messages to `localhost' and they will be delivered as usual. It's also potentially a useful interface for spammers and viruses that bypasses remote authentication, in particular if the MTA is misconfigured as an open-relay. I may as well offer my dime's worth since I have used and fought-with sendmail sinve FreeBSD-2.0.5. I bought the book; it is super-dense. Still, sendmail, with it's horrible complexity and remaining bug [!] has knobs that its authors have forgotten. How about this: A small bunch of us get together and write up (say) 50 pages of readable material with examples. I'll be one of the few [3 to 5] writers. There very well may be better MTAs out there, but at least sendmail works! gary ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org -- Gary Kline kl...@thought.org http://www.thought.org Public Service Unix http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org The 7.31a release of Jottings: http://jottings.thought.org/index.php ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
Ruben de Groot wrote: On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 06:55:20PM +0100, Erik Norgaard typed: Giorgos Keramidas wrote: I don't argue for a replacement but for the elimination. Install a port if you need an MTA, you're happy with that way for so many other standard services. Isn't this going a little too far? What other posix systems ship whith no default MTA at all? Not many I would say. That would be a valid argument if an MTA is required to comply with the posix standard. AFAIK it is not. The default should be to dump cron output to a file. No need to setup 4 mail clients. Only if you want to send the output to a remote address would you need to do this. No need to setup mail clients? How about you having to create an infrastructure to parse all these files on your servers? I like the way it is: create an alias for root and be done with it. What? This is silly. Currently cron sends you output to the root inbox, do you require an infrastructure to parse these mails? I suggest to dump this same output to a file which can easily be read using more. The option remains to install from ports as with so many other things. And many other things not. Or do you want to go the linux way: just a kernel and the rest in packages? I like a complete OS. That's the key to the discussion, when is the OS complete? I could do without Sendmail, FTP daemon and NIS. Or the other way, why is there no http daemon in base, or no ldap? There really is no right answer to that, things change. It is always a valid discussion to question what should be part of base, if new things should be included and other things removed or replaced. If you reject this discussion with arguments such as because it's always been there then you risk FreeBSD will simply become legacy itself. My concern is if some heavy legacy application, because of history or tradition, remains in base will draw resources from advancing in other areas that are much more relevant today. sendmail is NOT a legacy application. It's actively being developed ON FreeBSD. Actually, the maintainer(s) are doing a great job and are definetely NOT drawing resources from anyone or anything else. Of course it is being actively developed, it has to, it's in base. You suggest that if Sendmail was not in base, then these developers currently maintaining Sendmail would be doing nothing instead? Yes, it does take resources. How much resources are spent on Sendmail, I have no idea. These discussions are. Absolutely, I was just bored, so it seems are you :) Also the sources in /usr/src/contrib/sendmail/src are 2.2 MB. That's not heavy at all. File size is not a measure of code quality, or the effort required to maintain it. Regards, Erik -- Erik Nørgaard Ph: +34.666334818/+34.915211157 http://www.locolomo.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:34:35 +, RW rwmailli...@googlemail.com wrote: On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:08:24 +0200 Giorgos Keramidas keram...@ceid.upatras.gr wrote: What is nice about Sendmail today is that with minimal changes to a base FreeBSD installation (the rc.conf(5) variable called sendmail_enable and a SMART_HOST value in sendmail.mc) one can quickly get up and running with a local-only MTA that: sendmail_enable exposes sendmail to the world. You don't need to set anything for a local relay. I should have been more clear: I meant sendmail_enable=NO (instead of NONE). This does not open Sendmail to anyone: keram...@kobe:/home/keramida$ sockstat -4 | sed -n -e 1p -e /send/p USER COMMANDPID FD PROTO LOCAL ADDRESS FOREIGN ADDRESS root sendmail 3001 4 tcp4 127.0.0.1:25 *:* I'm a bit tired of saying the same thing many times, so I will stop saying ``please, work on making this happen, and let us have the patches''. I'll drop out of this thread now, because it has already taken too much of my time to write replies. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:39:49 +0200 Giorgos Keramidas keram...@ceid.upatras.gr wrote: On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:34:35 +, RW rwmailli...@googlemail.com wrote: On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:08:24 +0200 Giorgos Keramidas keram...@ceid.upatras.gr wrote: What is nice about Sendmail today is that with minimal changes to a base FreeBSD installation (the rc.conf(5) variable called sendmail_enable and a SMART_HOST value in sendmail.mc) one can quickly get up and running with a local-only MTA that: sendmail_enable exposes sendmail to the world. You don't need to set anything for a local relay. I should have been more clear: I meant sendmail_enable=NO (instead of NONE). This does not open Sendmail to anyone: sendmail_enable=NO is the default. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
Having used sendmail since (quite nearly) the day it was released, and having also spent considerable time with postfix, exim, etc. in a variety of environments both small and quite large, I think I'm in a position to address this. Sendmail remains one of the best choices for an MTA. It's quite easy to configure for nearly all installations -- I would say that over the many I've done, most of those required only a few lines of changes to one of the m4 files to produce a fully-working configuration. It has an excellent feature set. It's maintained by some of the most experienced MTA people on this planet and while I don't agree with all of their design or implementation choices, I've learned to respect their judgment. It's readily configurable and customizable for some quite demanding and/or esoteric environments. It's documented exhaustively and considerable expertise abounds. It integrates well with just about everything, from webmail frontends to POP/IMAP servers to mailing list management software like Mailman. I see no reason at this time to change to another (default) MTA. Which is not to say that everyone should run the default MTA: some installations may require features which sendmail doesn't offer and can't be handled by milters. But in those cases -- where another MTA is required -- I expect the implementor to have the expertise to effect this change. ---Rsk ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:03:12 -0200 Gonzalo Nemmi gne...@gmail.com wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 4:32:45 pm Erik Norgaard wrote: Jonathan McKeown wrote: Just as a matter of interest, if you want to rip sendmail out of the base system, which MTA would you like to replace it with? Or are you suggesting the system ship with no way to handle mail? This thread moving of topic from OP, but it is always fair to debate what should be considered a base system. Is an MTA a requirement or a remnant from history? Dear Erik: Contrary to your belief the thread isn't moving of topic from OP, it's just taking the same default route it has been taking for ages: Just so. 1) telling the OP the OS needs an MTA 2) telling the OP he can replace the default MTA 3) telling the OP he can remove given MTA from base 4) telling the OP about historical reason This item has been neglected thus far in the current iteration of this topic. The *historical* distinction that places sendmail squarely in the base system and also relegates all other MTAs to ports is this: sendmail was written for, and has been part of, BSD UNIX since the earliest TCP/IP releases of BSD UNIX (4.1BSD or perhaps even 4.0cBSD), whereas the rest were not and have not been. 5) Not telling the OP why has FreeBSD has left so many historical reason behind to persuit new goals but retained Sendmail as the default MTA for historical reasons. Sorry .. but that's the way it goes every time someone asks the same question. And George Santayana's famous dictum may well apply even in this case. :) Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG ** * Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu * ** * A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good * * objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments * * -- a standing army. * *-- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 * ** ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
Lars Eighner said the following on 2009-10-28 05:46: On Wed, 28 Oct 2009, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:24:38 -0500 (CDT), Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com wrote: Evidently by making it necessary to learn yet another scripting language to configure it. Other than personal profit I cannot see why people are clinging like grim death to something this fubar. Really, let's go past this one more time: Sure, sendmail.cf is hard to work with so the solution is you learn m4! Did you look at the link he offered? How helpful is that? Beside which, m4 is a PORT. So if sendmail is not configurable without a port, why isn't it a port? Can we go back to our regular hacking, please? m4 is not a port: $ which m4 /usr/bin/m4 Evidently my package database is corrupt in some way, because it shows m4 as an installed port. I wonder how that happened, how to fix it, and if it will bite if I leave it alone. %whereis m4 m4: /usr/bin/m4 /usr/share/man/en.ISO8859-1/man1/m4.1.gz /usr/src/usr.bin/m4 It's not a package. If you want to fix it pkgdb -F ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
Lars Eighner said the following on 2009-10-28 05:46: On Wed, 28 Oct 2009, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:24:38 -0500 (CDT), Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com wrote: Evidently by making it necessary to learn yet another scripting language to configure it. Other than personal profit I cannot see why people are clinging like grim death to something this fubar. Really, let's go past this one more time: Sure, sendmail.cf is hard to work with so the solution is you learn m4! Did you look at the link he offered? How helpful is that? Beside which, m4 is a PORT. So if sendmail is not configurable without a port, why isn't it a port? Can we go back to our regular hacking, please? m4 is not a port: $ which m4 /usr/bin/m4 I wonder how that happened, Too much alcohol? how to fix it, cd /usr/ports/devel/m4 make deinstall and if it will bite if I leave it alone. No one will ever know that ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
m4 (was Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?)
Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com writes: On Wed, 28 Oct 2009, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:24:38 -0500 (CDT), Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com wrote: Evidently by making it necessary to learn yet another scripting language to configure it. Other than personal profit I cannot see why people are clinging like grim death to something this fubar. Really, let's go past this one more time: Sure, sendmail.cf is hard to work with so the solution is you learn m4! Did you look at the link he offered? How helpful is that? Beside which, m4 is a PORT. So if sendmail is not configurable without a port, why isn't it a port? Can we go back to our regular hacking, please? m4 is not a port: $ which m4 /usr/bin/m4 Evidently my package database is corrupt in some way, because it shows m4 as an installed port. I wonder how that happened, how to fix it, and if it will bite if I leave it alone. The port one is the Gnu version. The base system one is the traditional one that goes back to the ATT days, although it has been updated to meet POSIX. -- Lowell Gilbert, embedded/networking software engineer, Boston area http://be-well.ilk.org/~lowell/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
Jerry McAllister wrote: On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 05:03:12PM -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 4:32:45 pm Erik Norgaard wrote: Jonathan McKeown wrote: Just as a matter of interest, if you want to rip sendmail out of the base system, which MTA would you like to replace it with? Or are you suggesting the system ship with no way to handle mail? [snip] Dear Erik: Contrary to your belief the thread isn't moving of topic from OP, it's just taking the same default route it has been taking for ages: 1) telling the OP the OS needs an MTA 2) telling the OP he can replace the default MTA 3) telling the OP he can remove given MTA from base 4) telling the OP about historical reason 5) Not telling the OP why has FreeBSD has left so many historical reason behind to persuit new goals but retained Sendmail as the default MTA for historical reasons. Sorry .. but that's the way it goes every time someone asks the same question. Sounds like FAQ material. I will add one more that covers it best. Sendmail works just fine and there is no ACTUAL CURRENT reason to get rid of it.Years ago it had some weaknesses which have been fixed. So, that leaves personal preference as the only real reason for wanting to replace it. In that case, if your personal preference is to replace it, go ahead. There are several candidates and an earlier post described well how to do it. As for putting it in ports and taking it out of base, well, some message system is often needed before ports are installed. Sendmail fills the bill.Some other could also, but since Sendmail works just fine and is already there, then it is. [snip] I'm no mail server guru, but I liked how one could fairly easily get a base configuration going of Sendmail by following the page in the Handbook. Once done Postfix could be installed from ports and it would Just Work, because it would adopt the Sendmail config. Tweaking can start from a known good configuration. This doesn't include addon complexities such as virtual domains and users, spam and anti-virus, etc., but I've always found it better to start with a functional base and add the additional stuff one thing at a time. Yes - I favor Postfix, but it may not be the right cup of tea for all situations. However, my own personal preference is to leave the Sendmail thingy the way it is. I still use Sendmail for some things. There's just too many other fish that need to be fried. It works, supplies basic necessary functionality as is, is largely trouble free these days, and easily replaced with some other personal preference should it be desired. The guy in charge also actively maintains the FreeBSD bits. Compare the way Sendmail works in FreeBSD with lets say, ahem, Adobe's Flash. Opposite ends of the spectrum. Just my $.02 for sure, but I like the status quo being what it is. Now returning to the painting of my bikeshed... :-) -Mike ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 1:43 AM, Bernt Hansson be...@bah.homeip.net wrote: Lars Eighner said the following on 2009-10-28 05:46: On Wed, 28 Oct 2009, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:24:38 -0500 (CDT), Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com wrote: Evidently by making it necessary to learn yet another scripting language to configure it. Other than personal profit I cannot see why people are clinging like grim death to something this fubar. Really, let's go past this one more time: Sure, sendmail.cf is hard to work with so the solution is you learn m4! Did you look at the link he offered? How helpful is that? Beside which, m4 is a PORT. So if sendmail is not configurable without a port, why isn't it a port? Can we go back to our regular hacking, please? m4 is not a port: $ which m4 /usr/bin/m4 I wonder how that happened, Too much alcohol? Really? See /usr/src/usr.bin/m4/Makefile ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 02:14:17AM +, Frank Shute wrote: I'll speculate as to the reasons: NetBSD: probably wanted something smaller footprint-wise. OpenBSD: wanted something more secure. Those both sound like great reasons. Dragonfly: started afresh, so could replace it without many headaches. Considering what DragonFly's new MTA does (and doesn't do), I'm pretty sure smaller footprint was among the reasons for it to use something other than Sendmail, too. Saying that, it would be neat if it was taken out of base and replaced with something minimal that could cope with the demands of cron and not much else. Then the user is expected to install a MTA of their choice out of ports. That would mean less code in base and fewer security advisories. OpenSMTPD looks promising. If it turns out to be as nice as it seems it will, I wouldn't be opposed to making it part of base instead of Sendmail, but of course it's entirely possible that I've overlooked some potential problems. The licensing is right, too (unlike, perhaps, that of Postfix). -- Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] pgplmnOSIxhXl.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Wednesday 28 October 2009 12:14:17 am Frank Shute wrote: On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 08:45:59PM -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:31:34 pm Jerry McAllister wrote: [snippage] So, that leaves personal preference as the only real reason for wanting to replace it. Let me get this straight .. that means that every Linux distro, NetBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFlyBSD are all doing it just out of personal preference? I'll speculate as to the reasons: Come on .. there was no need to speculate .. you have the whole internet at your finger tips ;) NetBSD: probably wanted something smaller footprint-wise. OpenBSD: wanted something more secure. No, not really ... OpenBSD: A few months ago, I had to dive into the configuration of sendmail to make a very small change. It turns out I spent almost an hour trying to make sense out of a maze of files that were plain unreadable. Even the slightest changes would cause me to stand a couple minutes thinking, just trying to make sure I really wanted to make that change. ... You'll find whole thing here: http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=articlesid=20081112084647 Dragonfly: started afresh, so could replace it without many headaches. By all means no .. not at all .. they didn't even started afresh .. Anyways .. You'll find the reasons here: http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/mailarchive/kernel/2007-03/msg00060.html Hey, again and again people are complaining about why sendmail is in base and why not postfix, etc. We keep saying that we do need a mail delivery/transport agent, for stuff such as periodic, cron, etc. But that doesn't mean that we need sendmail. Actually a much simpler mailer would do: one that just delivers locally (and if possible, remote) and does nothing else. ... and here: http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/mailarchive/submit/2008-02/msg0.html Hi, corecode@ announced his DragonFly mail agent in [1] as a small, simple and clean implementation of a mailer in the base. The goal of dma was not to replace a feature complete MTA like sendmail or postfix. The basic intention was to be able to deliver mails from cron, periodic etc to local users. I enhanced dma and added remote delivery and some other features needed for works-out-of-the-box and to keep users happy :) The list of all features follows: ... Yet still, DragonFlyBSD as well as OpenBSD are in the procces of fully moving to their respective mailers, unlike NetBSD which already moved to Postfix. RedHat: poor package management made it a pain to upgrade. That only accounts for only one distribution and I really don't know what you mean with package management because they have a lot of them ... FreeBSD: ? I can't think of a good reason why FreeBSD should get rid of it. Saying that, it would be neat if it was taken out of base and replaced with something minimal that could cope with the demands of cron and not much else. Then the user is expected to install a MTA of their choice out of ports. That would mean less code in base and fewer security advisories. Yup .. I fully agree with you ... I just cancelled my freebsdmall.com FreeBSD suscription in order to use that money to buy OpenBSD releases .. so my money gets used to finance the development of OpenSMTP and other milestone technologies. They've earned it :) jerry Best Regards Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 05:11:54PM -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi wrote: On Wednesday 28 October 2009 12:14:17 am Frank Shute wrote: On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 08:45:59PM -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:31:34 pm Jerry McAllister wrote: [snippage] So, that leaves personal preference as the only real reason for wanting to replace it. Let me get this straight .. that means that every Linux distro, NetBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFlyBSD are all doing it just out of personal preference? I'll speculate as to the reasons: Come on .. there was no need to speculate .. you have the whole internet at your finger tips ;) Heh, I forgot about google ;) NetBSD: probably wanted something smaller footprint-wise. OpenBSD: wanted something more secure. No, not really ... OpenBSD: A few months ago, I had to dive into the configuration of sendmail to make a very small change. It turns out I spent almost an hour trying to make sense out of a maze of files that were plain unreadable. Even the slightest changes would cause me to stand a couple minutes thinking, just trying to make sure I really wanted to make that change. ... You'll find whole thing here: http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=articlesid=20081112084647 Dragonfly: started afresh, so could replace it without many headaches. By all means no .. not at all .. they didn't even started afresh .. Anyways .. You'll find the reasons here: http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/mailarchive/kernel/2007-03/msg00060.html Hey, again and again people are complaining about why sendmail is in base and why not postfix, etc. We keep saying that we do need a mail delivery/transport agent, for stuff such as periodic, cron, etc. But that doesn't mean that we need sendmail. Actually a much simpler mailer would do: one that just delivers locally (and if possible, remote) and does nothing else. ... and here: http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/mailarchive/submit/2008-02/msg0.html Hi, corecode@ announced his DragonFly mail agent in [1] as a small, simple and clean implementation of a mailer in the base. The goal of dma was not to replace a feature complete MTA like sendmail or postfix. The basic intention was to be able to deliver mails from cron, periodic etc to local users. I enhanced dma and added remote delivery and some other features needed for works-out-of-the-box and to keep users happy :) The list of all features follows: ... Yet still, DragonFlyBSD as well as OpenBSD are in the procces of fully moving to their respective mailers, unlike NetBSD which already moved to Postfix. RedHat: poor package management made it a pain to upgrade. That only accounts for only one distribution and I really don't know what you mean with package management because they have a lot of them ... I'm aiming at RPM. RedHat used to use Sendmail; I think Debian uses Exim but uses apt. Don't know about Suse. My main point though was that all of them had reasons to dump Sendmail. FreeBSD: ? I can't think of a good reason why FreeBSD should get rid of it. Saying that, it would be neat if it was taken out of base and replaced with something minimal that could cope with the demands of cron and not much else. Then the user is expected to install a MTA of their choice out of ports. That would mean less code in base and fewer security advisories. Yup .. I fully agree with you ... I just cancelled my freebsdmall.com FreeBSD suscription in order to use that money to buy OpenBSD releases .. so my money gets used to finance the development of OpenSMTP and other milestone technologies. They've earned it :) Thanks for the informative post Gonzalo. I like the look of the Dragonfly approach (although I don't use it). Perhaps in FreeBSD 10* somebody might work to incorporate one or the other (DMA or OpenSMTP) and strip out Sendmail and leave it in ports where it belongs. I can see that having real benefits in licensing, footprint and usability. jerry Best Regards Gonzalo Nemmi Regards, -- Frank Contact info: http://www.shute.org.uk/misc/contact.html ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Monday 26 October 2009 21:29:27 Yuri wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? What is this anti-sendmail obsession people have? Almost everyone I've ever spoken to about why they dislike sendmail trots out a bunch of cliches based on sendmail 8.8. People, we're up to sendmail 8.14 now. Get over it! Just as a matter of interest, if you want to rip sendmail out of the base system, which MTA would you like to replace it with? Or are you suggesting the system ship with no way to handle mail? Jonathan ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, Jonathan McKeown wrote: On Monday 26 October 2009 21:29:27 Yuri wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? What is this anti-sendmail obsession people have? The configuration is opaque, to put it kindly. -- Lars Eighner http://www.larseighner.com/index.html 8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
2009/10/27 Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, Jonathan McKeown wrote: On Monday 26 October 2009 21:29:27 Yuri wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? What is this anti-sendmail obsession people have? The configuration is opaque, to put it kindly. Are you talking about sendmail.m4 or sendmail.cf? Because we stopped editing sendmail.cf by hand years ago. I really don't think configuring it properly is difficult. As you kindly cut out of Jonathan's post when you replied to it, Almost everyone I've ever spoken to about why they dislike sendmail trots out a bunch of cliches based on sendmail 8.8. People, we're up to sendmail 8.14 now. Get over it! [1] Chris [1] http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-questions@freebsd.org/msg223489.html -- A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in a mailing list? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? Obviously, not everyone wants or needs sendmail in the base system. But quite a few people do use it, and many FreeBSD developers are happy with the status quo, so it is unlikely that sendmail will be removed soon. But there's nothing to prevent you from disabling it in rc.conf(5): sendmail_enable=NONE and replacing it's administrative use with local logs in periodic.conf(5), by adding, for example: daily_output=/var/log/daily.log daily_clean_hoststat_enable=NO daily_status_mailq_enable=NO daily_status_include_submit_mailq=NO daily_status_mail_rejects_enable=NO daily_queuerun_enable=NO daily_submit_queuerun=NO daily_status_security_output=/var/log/daily.log weekly_output=/var/log/weekly.log monthly_output=/var/log/monthly.log . (Or you can use another MTA instead.) You can also go one step farther: if you have the system sources available, you can rip sendmail out of the base system and avoid building and installing it again by using either WITHOUT_SENDMAIL=yes or WITHOUT_MAIL=yes in src.conf(5), then running 'make delete-old' and 'make delete-old-libs' in /usr/src, and finally removing any leftover associated files by hand. (find(1) can be used with the appropriate flags to check for stale files or empty directories in the base system directories immediately after a fresh install in order to help locate such leftover files. A warning: use of the more drastic WITHOUT_MAIL option can remove /usr/bin/fmt, which is used unconditionally by some src targets. So you may need to install fmt by hand, or patch the src Makefiles so that fmt isn't used.) All this doesn't take very long, and doesn't need to be done all that often on an existing system, so the presence of sendmail in the base system shouldn't worry you too much, even if you don't want to use it on your system(s). b. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:32:14 am b. f. wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? Obviously, not everyone wants or needs sendmail in the base system. But quite a few people do use it, and many FreeBSD developers are happy with the status quo, so it is unlikely that sendmail will be removed soon. But there's nothing to prevent you from disabling it in rc.conf(5): Or from switching to other BSDs in which the last word over an issue stands in the hands of reason .. and not in the hands of status quo ... which, by the way, never took any science a single step forwar, and on the contrary ... did everything it could to stop it ... because otherwise, there would be no status quo anymore or it will fall in the hands of others. sendmail_enable=NONE and replacing it's administrative use with local logs in periodic.conf(5), by adding, for example: daily_output=/var/log/daily.log daily_clean_hoststat_enable=NO daily_status_mailq_enable=NO daily_status_include_submit_mailq=NO daily_status_mail_rejects_enable=NO daily_queuerun_enable=NO daily_submit_queuerun=NO daily_status_security_output=/var/log/daily.log weekly_output=/var/log/weekly.log monthly_output=/var/log/monthly.log . (Or you can use another MTA instead.) You can also go one step farther: if you have the system sources available, you can rip sendmail out of the base system and avoid building and installing it again by using either WITHOUT_SENDMAIL=yes or WITHOUT_MAIL=yes in src.conf(5), then running 'make delete-old' and 'make delete-old-libs' in /usr/src, and finally removing any leftover associated files by hand. (find(1) can be used with the appropriate flags to check for stale files or empty directories in the base system directories immediately after a fresh install in order to help locate such leftover files. A warning: use of the more drastic WITHOUT_MAIL option can remove /usr/bin/fmt, which is used unconditionally by some src targets. So you may need to install fmt by hand, or patch the src Makefiles so that fmt isn't used.) All this doesn't take very long, and doesn't need to be done all that often on an existing system, so the presence of sendmail in the base system shouldn't worry you too much, even if you don't want to use it on your system(s). b. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org Best Regards Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Monday 26 October 2009 11:06:47 pm Olivier Nicole wrote: How many people actually use it? Very few. Out of the 12 or 15 servers I run, only one do not use stock sendmail: the mail server. So one out of twelve is rather quite a lot... Let me get this .. are you saying that out of 12 server, 11 run sendmail as a local mailer and that the only server that runs a mail server (the one that conects to the outside world) uses other MTA? I'm asking honestly .. see, the OP question is really hard to answer ... It is a fact that every default install, and only a default install .. because sysinstall gives you the chance to install other MTAs, of FreeBSD install uses Sendmail .. but there's absolutely no relation between that and number of people who actually uses it as their mail server of choice to face the internet ... Of course every FreeBSD default install uses Sendmail as a local mailer, but that doesn't account for How many people actually use it? .. It only says that every FreeBSD default install uses Sendmail as a local mailer but no more than that :s Best Regards Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tuesday 27 October 2009 5:16:30 am Jonathan McKeown wrote: On Monday 26 October 2009 21:29:27 Yuri wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? What is this anti-sendmail obsession people have? Hard to tell .. and, personaly I wouldn't so hastly conclude that this concerns anti-sendmail obsession, are but it seems to be spreading as a disease ... Linux distributions where the first to get it out of their default install in favor of Postfix, and the other BSDs .. well NetBSD uses Postfix, DragonflyBSD is working on moving to DMA and OpenBSD is working steadily and hard on OpenSMTPD ... Maybe they can tell .. Almost everyone I've ever spoken to about why they dislike sendmail trots out a bunch of cliches based on sendmail 8.8. People, we're up to sendmail 8.14 now. Get over it! Just as a matter of interest, if you want to rip sendmail out of the base system, which MTA would you like to replace it with? Or are you suggesting the system ship with no way to handle mail? No .. I think he is just asking Why isn't it moved to ports? and replaced by another mailer ... Best Regards Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:43:39 -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi gne...@gmail.com wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:32:14 am b. f. wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? Obviously, not everyone wants or needs sendmail in the base system. But quite a few people do use it, and many FreeBSD developers are happy with the status quo, so it is unlikely that sendmail will be removed soon. But there's nothing to prevent you from disabling it in rc.conf(5): Or from switching to other BSDs in which the last word over an issue stands in the hands of reason .. and not in the hands of status quo... which, by the way, never took any science a single step forwar, and on the contrary ... did everything it could to stop it ... because otherwise, there would be no status quo anymore or it will fall in the hands of others. This is precisely the reason why the `status quo' exists. Because people tend to get all political about this sort of thing, and that's exactly the point where the entire discussion goes downhill. First of all, there are ways to build a base system _WITHOUT_ any trace of Sendmail (the WITHOUT_SENDMAIL, WITHOUT_MAILWRAPPER and WITHOUT_MAIL) knobs. So it's not like FreeBSD stops anyone from removing Sendmail. Now, the rest of the comments about 'science' and 'moving forward' are not productive at all. If someone wants to move the particular thing forward there is a well-known _technical_ way of resolving this: - Import your MTA of choice in a local branch. - Integrate the $NEWMTA with the base system of FreeBSD. - Update the manpages and documentation for $NEWMTA. - Submit the patches to the FreeBSD team for review. - Keep updating them as FreeBSD changes. - Maintain and keep the $NEWMTA in shape, by: + reimporting new releases + fixing any bugs that creep up + answering questions of the people who are in a (painful) transitional phase while the dust from $NEWMTA import settles + showing that you have a genuine interest to keep $NEWMTA in a functional, up to date, working condition This is a *lot* of work. Don't be fooled into thinking that I am ever implying it's going to be easy. It will take time, patience, a _lot_ of effort on the part of the submitter, and a sizable amount of _time_. But it is not impossible. So, anyone who really _wants_ to do it, is really both welcome to go ahead and certainly free to do it. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
Jonathan McKeown wrote: Just as a matter of interest, if you want to rip sendmail out of the base system, which MTA would you like to replace it with? Or are you suggesting the system ship with no way to handle mail? This thread moving of topic from OP, but it is always fair to debate what should be considered a base system. Is an MTA a requirement or a remnant from history? And if an MTA is a requirement then asking which one is the best choice is also a fair question. An equally fair answer could be whichever change requires the least work. No different than asking, why is NIS still in the base? Why no ldap? why BIND, but no http? Why NFS? etc... I think the only void answer is because of tradition, that just seems to show that noone really remembers why some choice was made. BR, Erik -- Erik Nørgaard Ph: +34.666334818/+34.915211157 http://www.locolomo.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tuesday 27 October 2009 4:00:07 pm Giorgos Keramidas wrote: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:43:39 -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi gne...@gmail.com wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:32:14 am b. f. wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? Obviously, not everyone wants or needs sendmail in the base system. But quite a few people do use it, and many FreeBSD developers are happy with the status quo, so it is unlikely that sendmail will be removed soon. But there's nothing to prevent you from disabling it in rc.conf(5): Or from switching to other BSDs in which the last word over an issue stands in the hands of reason .. and not in the hands of status quo... which, by the way, never took any science a single step forwar, and on the contrary ... did everything it could to stop it ... because otherwise, there would be no status quo anymore or it will fall in the hands of others. This is precisely the reason why the `status quo' exists. Because people tend to get all political about this sort of thing, and that's exactly the point where the entire discussion goes downhill. So .. status quo is a good thing ... First of all, there are ways to build a base system _WITHOUT_ any trace of Sendmail (the WITHOUT_SENDMAIL, WITHOUT_MAILWRAPPER and WITHOUT_MAIL) knobs. So it's not like FreeBSD stops anyone from removing Sendmail. That was never the OP's concern and it's a point that has already been clear for ages and then some more. Now, the rest of the comments about 'science' and 'moving forward' are not productive at all. If someone wants to move the particular thing forward there is a well-known _technical_ way of resolving this: Yet, CS development takes place on BSD fields .. so ... I beg to disagree but, AFAIC the only thing that's not productive at all is not discussing issues and let them be handled by status quo, which .. yet again, never took and any science a single step forward. Feel free to read any history book that accounts from Galileo to today. - Import your MTA of choice in a local branch. - Integrate the $NEWMTA with the base system of FreeBSD. - Update the manpages and documentation for $NEWMTA. - Submit the patches to the FreeBSD team for review. - Keep updating them as FreeBSD changes. - Maintain and keep the $NEWMTA in shape, by: + reimporting new releases + fixing any bugs that creep up + answering questions of the people who are in a (painful) transitional phase while the dust from $NEWMTA import settles + showing that you have a genuine interest to keep $NEWMTA in a functional, up to date, working condition This is a *lot* of work. Don't be fooled into thinking that I am ever implying it's going to be easy. It will take time, patience, a _lot_ of effort on the part of the submitter, and a sizable amount of _time_. That's way outside of the scope of the OP question .. yet still: Wasn't ZFS (and isn't) a lot of work? Aren't DMA, OpenSMTP, OpenCVS, ULE a lot of work? Weren't OpenSSH, OpenSSL, SMP support a lot of work? Actually, I really have a hard time looking for something that wasn't, isn't, or will be a *lot* of work. Maybe we could ask Ed Schouten if his xterm-style emulator will or will not be a *lot* of work .. like to have an authoritative answer ... And since we are at it, wasn't translating the whole FreeBSD documentation into greek a *lot* of work Giorgos. Maybe you could provide us with an authoritative answer too. What wasn't that didn't stop you from doing it?? But it is not impossible. So, anyone who really _wants_ to do it, is really both welcome to go ahead and certainly free to do it. Given the state of the status quo .. I really doubt anyone will stand up to take that task into his hands .. even if as a GSOC. Best Regards Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 12:32, Bill Moran wmo...@potentialtech.com wrote: In response to Yuri y...@rawbw.com: Besides, if it's not there, how are you going to send mail from things like cron? Postfix. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 00:16, Jonathan McKeown j.mcke...@ru.ac.za wrote: On Monday 26 October 2009 21:29:27 Yuri wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? What is this anti-sendmail obsession people have? Almost everyone I've ever spoken to about why they dislike sendmail trots out a bunch of cliches based on sendmail 8.8. People, we're up to sendmail 8.14 now. Get over it! Just as a matter of interest, if you want to rip sendmail out of the base system, which MTA would you like to replace it with? Or are you suggesting the system ship with no way to handle mail? I tried sendmail about 8 years ago. Don't know what the version was. Found it opaque and obscure. Went to Postfix, and have never looked back. Can't comment on sendmail's current state or practice, but postfix Just Works(tm) for me. Kurt ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
Green! No, no, Blue! AA -- Lowell Gilbert, embedded/networking software engineer, Boston area http://be-well.ilk.org/~lowell/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tuesday 27 October 2009 4:32:45 pm Erik Norgaard wrote: Jonathan McKeown wrote: Just as a matter of interest, if you want to rip sendmail out of the base system, which MTA would you like to replace it with? Or are you suggesting the system ship with no way to handle mail? This thread moving of topic from OP, but it is always fair to debate what should be considered a base system. Is an MTA a requirement or a remnant from history? Dear Erik: Contrary to your belief the thread isn't moving of topic from OP, it's just taking the same default route it has been taking for ages: 1) telling the OP the OS needs an MTA 2) telling the OP he can replace the default MTA 3) telling the OP he can remove given MTA from base 4) telling the OP about historical reason 5) Not telling the OP why has FreeBSD has left so many historical reason behind to persuit new goals but retained Sendmail as the default MTA for historical reasons. Sorry .. but that's the way it goes every time someone asks the same question. And if an MTA is a requirement then asking which one is the best choice is also a fair question. An equally fair answer could be whichever change requires the least work. Indeed No different than asking, why is NIS still in the base? Why no ldap? why BIND, but no http? Why NFS? etc... Let me save you the trouble; the answer to mot of that questions will be: historical reasons and that other solutions can can only dream of enjoying a fraction of the respect that BIND and Sendmail command in the industry Believe it or not ... I think the only void answer is because of tradition, that just seems to show that noone really remembers why some choice was made. BR, Erik Best Regards Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:16:14 am Chris Rees wrote: 2009/10/27 Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, Jonathan McKeown wrote: On Monday 26 October 2009 21:29:27 Yuri wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? What is this anti-sendmail obsession people have? The configuration is opaque, to put it kindly. Are you talking about sendmail.m4 or sendmail.cf? Because we stopped editing sendmail.cf by hand years ago. I really don't think configuring it properly is difficult. Im holding Sendmail, 3rd edition by O'reilly in my hands right now .. the Bat book .. I covers up to Sendmail 8.12 (massive changes took place between 8.9 and 8.12), and I'm still looking at a massive 1207 pages book that deals with a single piece of software ... In my other hand, I'm holding Postfix, The definitive guide by O'Reilly too ... 206 pages to get a fully functional MTA working. The Senmail book is even bigger than the Lucas book on FreeBSD ... the whole Operative System As you kindly cut out of Jonathan's post when you replied to it, Almost everyone I've ever spoken to about why they dislike sendmail trots out a bunch of cliches based on sendmail 8.8. People, we're up to sendmail 8.14 now. Get over it! No .. it didn't get any easier. Best Regards Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:47:12 -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi gne...@gmail.com wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 4:00:07 pm Giorgos Keramidas wrote: - Import your MTA of choice in a local branch. - Integrate the $NEWMTA with the base system of FreeBSD. - Update the manpages and documentation for $NEWMTA. - Submit the patches to the FreeBSD team for review. - Keep updating them as FreeBSD changes. - Maintain and keep the $NEWMTA in shape, by: + reimporting new releases + fixing any bugs that creep up + answering questions of the people who are in a (painful) transitional phase while the dust from $NEWMTA import settles + showing that you have a genuine interest to keep $NEWMTA in a functional, up to date, working condition This is a *lot* of work. Don't be fooled into thinking that I am ever implying it's going to be easy. It will take time, patience, a _lot_ of effort on the part of the submitter, and a sizable amount of _time_. That's way outside of the scope of the OP question .. yet still: Wasn't ZFS (and isn't) a lot of work? Aren't DMA, OpenSMTP, OpenCVS, ULE a lot of work? Weren't OpenSSH, OpenSSL, SMP support a lot of work? Actually, I really have a hard time looking for something that wasn't, isn't, or will be a *lot* of work. Maybe we could ask Ed Schouten if his xterm-style emulator will or will not be a *lot* of work .. like to have an authoritative answer ... And since we are at it, wasn't translating the whole FreeBSD documentation into greek a *lot* of work Giorgos. Maybe you could provide us with an authoritative answer too. What wasn't that didn't stop you from doing it?? Yes, all this was a lot of work and it still is. What I wrote is not in the spirit of silencing anyone who wants to see Sendmail go. It was a description of how it _can_ be done. But it is not impossible. So, anyone who really _wants_ to do it, is really both welcome to go ahead and certainly free to do it. Given the state of the status quo .. I really doubt anyone will stand up to take that task into his hands .. even if as a GSOC. Back when we started to translate the Handbook to Greek, it seemed like an impossibly huge task. A humongous and scary task. Something that would probably *never* be complete and 'done'. Ask our translators now. After almost 8 years of chipping at the bits here and there, we have a loosely organized team of people who actually _like_ doing this sort of stuff. So, anyone who is interested to see Sendmail go, should know that it is going to be a large and time-consuming undertaking. But they should also know that it is not _impossible_. All the projects you described above, including the ones I'm affiliated with, were actually _made_ possible by sitting down and doing the work. What I don't really like is arguing this way and that way, without any intention of actually putting one's code where one's mouth is. If we can reduce _that_ and work on actual patches then the status quo can change. Until then, the status quo is here because it works, it has been stable for a very long time, and it serves its current purpose well enough. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, Chris Rees wrote: 2009/10/27 Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, Jonathan McKeown wrote: On Monday 26 October 2009 21:29:27 Yuri wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? What is this anti-sendmail obsession people have? The configuration is opaque, to put it kindly. Are you talking about sendmail.m4 or sendmail.cf? Because we stopped editing sendmail.cf by hand years ago. Then what are we using to edit sendmail.cf? The man page doesn't seem to be et up with verbosity on the subject. Let me guess: a gnome GUI? -- Lars Eighner http://www.larseighner.com/index.html 8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tuesday 27 October 2009 5:24:58 pm Giorgos Keramidas wrote: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:47:12 -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi gne...@gmail.com wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 4:00:07 pm Giorgos Keramidas wrote: - Import your MTA of choice in a local branch. - Integrate the $NEWMTA with the base system of FreeBSD. - Update the manpages and documentation for $NEWMTA. - Submit the patches to the FreeBSD team for review. - Keep updating them as FreeBSD changes. - Maintain and keep the $NEWMTA in shape, by: + reimporting new releases + fixing any bugs that creep up + answering questions of the people who are in a (painful) transitional phase while the dust from $NEWMTA import settles + showing that you have a genuine interest to keep $NEWMTA in a functional, up to date, working condition This is a *lot* of work. Don't be fooled into thinking that I am ever implying it's going to be easy. It will take time, patience, a _lot_ of effort on the part of the submitter, and a sizable amount of _time_. That's way outside of the scope of the OP question .. yet still: Wasn't ZFS (and isn't) a lot of work? Aren't DMA, OpenSMTP, OpenCVS, ULE a lot of work? Weren't OpenSSH, OpenSSL, SMP support a lot of work? Actually, I really have a hard time looking for something that wasn't, isn't, or will be a *lot* of work. Maybe we could ask Ed Schouten if his xterm-style emulator will or will not be a *lot* of work .. like to have an authoritative answer ... And since we are at it, wasn't translating the whole FreeBSD documentation into greek a *lot* of work Giorgos. Maybe you could provide us with an authoritative answer too. What wasn't that didn't stop you from doing it?? Yes, all this was a lot of work and it still is. What I wrote is not in the spirit of silencing anyone who wants to see Sendmail go. It was a description of how it _can_ be done. I know Giorgios .. you are a good guy and you do _a_lot_ for FreeBSD, specially: advocacy work ... I've seen it in you flickr ;) I know you never meant to silence anyone. But it is not impossible. So, anyone who really _wants_ to do it, is really both welcome to go ahead and certainly free to do it. Given the state of the status quo .. I really doubt anyone will stand up to take that task into his hands .. even if as a GSOC. Back when we started to translate the Handbook to Greek, it seemed like an impossibly huge task. A humongous and scary task. Something that would probably *never* be complete and 'done'. Ask our translators now. After almost 8 years of chipping at the bits here and there, we have a loosely organized team of people who actually _like_ doing this sort of stuff. So, anyone who is interested to see Sendmail go, should know that it is going to be a large and time-consuming undertaking. But they should also know that it is not _impossible_. All the projects you described above, including the ones I'm affiliated with, were actually _made_ possible by sitting down and doing the work. That was exactly my point. Im glad you understood it the right way. What I don't really like is arguing this way and that way, without any intention of actually putting one's code where one's mouth is. If we can reduce _that_ and work on actual patches then the status quo can change. Personally, I don't like arguing either .. but I can't help but seeing it as the only possible kickstart when positions on a subject are so radically taken. Now, regarding the putting one's code where one's mouth is., that's not only an ideal but also likely scenario ... but look back in time on what happened with other such projects (Constantine Murenin as an example .. and just because I don't want to name other projects/ideas that ended up giving birth to new BSD systems ...) and wonder what would the scenario be knowing in advanced that status quo is not on your side .. and that even worse .. it's in the other. What I'm basically trying to say is that history accounts for the fact that no matter how much you put your code where your mouth is, status quo will remain status quo .. and that is what facts have showned so far. So, in view of those facts, I can hardly see anyone writing a single line of code to change the present situation unless status quo takes the first step .. and even in that case .. I can understand a lot of reluctancy on sitting down and doing the work Until then, the status quo is here because it works, it has been stable for a very long time, and it serves its current purpose well enough. Beg to disagree ... Best Regards and thanks for such a polite, reasonable and sensible reply. Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
2009/10/27 Gonzalo Nemmi gne...@gmail.com: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:32:14 am b. f. wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? Obviously, not everyone wants or needs sendmail in the base system. But quite a few people do use it, and many FreeBSD developers are happy with the status quo, so it is unlikely that sendmail will be removed soon. But there's nothing to prevent you from disabling it in rc.conf(5): Or from switching to other BSDs in which the last word over an issue stands in the hands of reason .. and not in the hands of status quo ... which, by the way, never took any science a single step forwar, and on the contrary ... did everything it could to stop it ... because otherwise, there would be no status quo anymore or it will fall in the hands of others. What programs to include by default in a particular operating system ain't science, buddy, no matter how thin you slice that bologna. -- -- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 09:24:58PM +0200, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: [big snip] Until then, the status quo is here because it works, it has been stable for a very long time, and it serves its current purpose well enough. I don't use sendmail but it's easy enough to build a different MTA out of ports (at least Postfix is easy) and turn off sendmail, as others have pointed out. I can imagine that a lot of people do use sendmail - it's documented in the handbook for starters. If it was taken out and replaced with another MTA then there would be complaints that sendmail has been taken out or replacement MTA is the wrong one. If somebody's insane enough to write the patches to replace sendmail (will they be accepted?), then they are also going to have to replace all the hooks for removing the MTA, like sendmail currently has; and they're going to have to document the MTA in the handbook. They'll also need a thick skin to handle all the brickbats that come their way ;) I can think of many ways to more fruitfully spend the time that it would take to remove sendmail from base. Removing it from base would also mean that others have to spend time reconfiguring their system(s): not good. I vote for sendmail, even though I'm a postfix user! I don't like change for no good reason and nobody's supplied a good reason yet. Regards, -- Frank Contact info: http://www.shute.org.uk/misc/contact.html ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tuesday 27 October 2009 6:18:33 pm ill...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/10/27 Gonzalo Nemmi gne...@gmail.com: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:32:14 am b. f. wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? Obviously, not everyone wants or needs sendmail in the base system. But quite a few people do use it, and many FreeBSD developers are happy with the status quo, so it is unlikely that sendmail will be removed soon. But there's nothing to prevent you from disabling it in rc.conf(5): Or from switching to other BSDs in which the last word over an issue stands in the hands of reason .. and not in the hands of status quo ... which, by the way, never took any science a single step forwar, and on the contrary ... did everything it could to stop it ... because otherwise, there would be no status quo anymore or it will fall in the hands of others. What programs to include by default in a particular operating system ain't science, buddy, no matter how thin you slice that bologna. Developing new technologies to improve the state of any given situation or problem in any given point in time is science. This thread is not about What programs to include by default in a particular operating system. Keep slicing your bologna. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
2009/10/27 Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, Chris Rees wrote: 2009/10/27 Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, Jonathan McKeown wrote: On Monday 26 October 2009 21:29:27 Yuri wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? What is this anti-sendmail obsession people have? The configuration is opaque, to put it kindly. Are you talking about sendmail.m4 or sendmail.cf? Because we stopped editing sendmail.cf by hand years ago. Then what are we using to edit sendmail.cf? The man page doesn't seem to be et up with verbosity on the subject. Let me guess: a gnome GUI? You guessed wrong. We use m4, which cuts out most of the crap that you had to write into sendmail.cf. You write sendmail.mc and compile it. Sendmail.mc on my system is less than 50 lines long, including comments. http://www.sendmail.org/m4/intro.html Chris -- A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in a mailing list? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tuesday 27 October 2009 6:20:35 pm Frank Shute wrote: On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 09:24:58PM +0200, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: [big snip] Until then, the status quo is here because it works, it has been stable for a very long time, and it serves its current purpose well enough. I don't use sendmail but it's easy enough to build a different MTA out of ports (at least Postfix is easy) and turn off sendmail, as others have pointed out. Indeed Frank ... that has been well stablished for a long time .. not only in this thread but also on every faq on Freebsd and MTAs, handbook and other assorted texts. I can imagine that a lot of people do use sendmail - it's documented in the handbook for starters. If it was taken out and replaced with another MTA then there would be complaints that sendmail has been taken out or replacement MTA is the wrong one. Well .. someday UFS will be replaced by ZFS .. and one day Perl just dissapeard from base .. yet the worl kept turning, and even better .. no one got hurt ;) in the other hand, those not complaining, will probably be really happy .. so ... If somebody's insane enough to write the patches to replace sendmail (will they be accepted?), then they are also going to have to replace all the hooks for removing the MTA, like sendmail currently has; and they're going to have to document the MTA in the handbook. Regarding your question about the patches, well .. that's what I was discussing with Giorgios ... Now for the rest of the paragraph .. uhm .. yes .. that's the way it goes .. and that's the path every Linux distro and NetBSD took ... and the same path OpenBSD and DragonFlyBSD will take when the time comes ... They'll also need a thick skin to handle all the brickbats that come their way ;) And who didn't need them ;) I can think of many ways to more fruitfully spend the time that it would take to remove sendmail from base. Removing it from base would also mean that others have to spend time reconfiguring their system(s): not good. I wouldn't be so sure about that without thinking on the mid/long term consecuences first. Doesn't ZFS mean that you have to reconfigure (or even reinstall) your system? I vote for sendmail, even though I'm a postfix user! There's no voting going on .. OP just asked a question .. ;) I don't like change for no good reason and nobody's supplied a good reason yet. Well .. to some there are .. to some others, there aren't .. This is a discussion that winds back through time from a lot of threads ... Regards, Regards Gonzalo ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
I probably should move this bikeshed to freebsd-chat... Gonzalo Nemmi gne...@gmail.com writes: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 6:20:35 pm Frank Shute wrote: On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 09:24:58PM +0200, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: I can imagine that a lot of people do use sendmail - it's documented in the handbook for starters. If it was taken out and replaced with another MTA then there would be complaints that sendmail has been taken out or replacement MTA is the wrong one. Well .. someday UFS will be replaced by ZFS .. Maybe. That's still quite a way out, and who knows what else will come along in the meantime? .. and one day Perl just dissapeard from base .. yet the worl kept turning, and even better .. no one got hurt ;) I remember quite a bit of pain. It was worth it, because maintaining perl in the base was causing pain on an ongoing basis, but it was a problem for users in a number of different ways. in the other hand, those not complaining, will probably be really happy .. so ... So you keep saying, but I don't think there's any solid evidence. Your experience is one thing, but although I consider myself a postfix user, I have machines that run sendmail because it just worked for their purpose with no configuration at all. Doesn't ZFS mean that you have to reconfigure (or even reinstall) your system? No. Your old configuration works just fine if you still want to keep using it. You won't get the advantages of ZFS, but having it in FreeBSD didn't bre -- Lowell Gilbert, embedded/networking software engineer, Boston area http://be-well.ilk.org/~lowell/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 05:03:12PM -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 4:32:45 pm Erik Norgaard wrote: Jonathan McKeown wrote: Just as a matter of interest, if you want to rip sendmail out of the base system, which MTA would you like to replace it with? Or are you suggesting the system ship with no way to handle mail? This thread moving of topic from OP, but it is always fair to debate what should be considered a base system. Is an MTA a requirement or a remnant from history? Dear Erik: Contrary to your belief the thread isn't moving of topic from OP, it's just taking the same default route it has been taking for ages: 1) telling the OP the OS needs an MTA 2) telling the OP he can replace the default MTA 3) telling the OP he can remove given MTA from base 4) telling the OP about historical reason 5) Not telling the OP why has FreeBSD has left so many historical reason behind to persuit new goals but retained Sendmail as the default MTA for historical reasons. Sorry .. but that's the way it goes every time someone asks the same question. I will add one more that covers it best. Sendmail works just fine and there is no ACTUAL CURRENT reason to get rid of it.Years ago it had some weaknesses which have been fixed. So, that leaves personal preference as the only real reason for wanting to replace it. In that case, if your personal preference is to replace it, go ahead. There are several candidates and an earlier post described well how to do it. As for putting it in ports and taking it out of base, well, some message system is often needed before ports are installed. Sendmail fills the bill.Some other could also, but since Sendmail works just fine and is already there, then it is. jerry And if an MTA is a requirement then asking which one is the best choice is also a fair question. An equally fair answer could be whichever change requires the least work. Indeed No different than asking, why is NIS still in the base? Why no ldap? why BIND, but no http? Why NFS? etc... Let me save you the trouble; the answer to mot of that questions will be: historical reasons and that other solutions can can only dream of enjoying a fraction of the respect that BIND and Sendmail command in the industry Believe it or not ... I think the only void answer is because of tradition, that just seems to show that noone really remembers why some choice was made. BR, Erik Best Regards Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:54:44 -0400 Lowell Gilbert freebsd-questions-lo...@be-well.ilk.org wrote: Green! No, no, Blue! AA I think it should be disque shaped. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:22:22 pm Lowell Gilbert wrote: I probably should move this bikeshed to freebsd-chat... Gonzalo Nemmi gne...@gmail.com writes: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 6:20:35 pm Frank Shute wrote: On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 09:24:58PM +0200, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: I can imagine that a lot of people do use sendmail - it's documented in the handbook for starters. If it was taken out and replaced with another MTA then there would be complaints that sendmail has been taken out or replacement MTA is the wrong one. Well .. someday UFS will be replaced by ZFS .. Maybe. That's still quite a way out, and who knows what else will come along in the meantime? HammerFS? A heavily armed Oracle lawyers squad team with 9mm. and willing to use them without a second thught?? Just a joke =P .. and one day Perl just dissapeard from base .. yet the worl kept turning, and even better .. no one got hurt ;) I remember quite a bit of pain. It was worth it, because maintaining perl in the base was causing pain on an ongoing basis, but it was a problem for users in a number of different ways. See what I mean? It actually paid off for most people .. but do you remember all the complaining that went on back then? What makes it any different now? And what would you say ... removing perl was more daunting that replacing Senmail? Honest question. in the other hand, those not complaining, will probably be really happy .. so ... So you keep saying, but I don't think there's any solid evidence. Your experience is one thing, but although I consider myself a postfix user, I have machines that run sendmail because it just worked for their purpose with no configuration at all. Didn't the same thing happen when perl was removed? Some complaining, some cheering ... Doesn't ZFS mean that you have to reconfigure (or even reinstall) your system? No. Your old configuration works just fine if you still want to keep using it. You won't get the advantages of ZFS, but having it in FreeBSD didn't bre Oh, sorry Lowell, I mean you had to reconfigure (or even reinstall) if you want to make use of it :) Sorry, I should've been more clear about that. Best Regards Gonzalo ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:31:34 pm Jerry McAllister wrote: On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 05:03:12PM -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 4:32:45 pm Erik Norgaard wrote: Jonathan McKeown wrote: Just as a matter of interest, if you want to rip sendmail out of the base system, which MTA would you like to replace it with? Or are you suggesting the system ship with no way to handle mail? This thread moving of topic from OP, but it is always fair to debate what should be considered a base system. Is an MTA a requirement or a remnant from history? Dear Erik: Contrary to your belief the thread isn't moving of topic from OP, it's just taking the same default route it has been taking for ages: 1) telling the OP the OS needs an MTA 2) telling the OP he can replace the default MTA 3) telling the OP he can remove given MTA from base 4) telling the OP about historical reason 5) Not telling the OP why has FreeBSD has left so many historical reason behind to persuit new goals but retained Sendmail as the default MTA for historical reasons. Sorry .. but that's the way it goes every time someone asks the same question. I will add one more that covers it best. Sendmail works just fine and there is no ACTUAL CURRENT reason to get rid of it.Years ago it had some weaknesses which have been fixed. I wonder what would have happened if Sir Isaac Newton followed the same line of though ... Or maybe there was an ACTUAL CURRENT reason to develop infinitesimal calculus ... which .. of course, by that time, nobody knew it even existed. Or maybe there was an ACTUAL CURRENT reason to discover the law of universal gravitation ... Or maybe .. not ... So, that leaves personal preference as the only real reason for wanting to replace it. Let me get this straight .. that means that every Linux distro, NetBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFlyBSD are all doing it just out of personal preference? In that case, if your personal preference is to replace it, go ahead. There are several candidates and an earlier post described well how to do it. Yes, that has already been pointed out quite a few times. As for putting it in ports and taking it out of base, well, some message system is often needed before ports are installed. Sendmail fills the bill.Some other could also, but since Sendmail works just fine and is already there, then it is. Fit the bill ... well.. so did the Geocentric model .. and it actually did work just as fine .. and even better yet since it also mantained the status quo ! ... but then Galileo came and you know the rest of the story ... jerry Best Regards Gonzalo Nemmi And if an MTA is a requirement then asking which one is the best choice is also a fair question. An equally fair answer could be whichever change requires the least work. Indeed No different than asking, why is NIS still in the base? Why no ldap? why BIND, but no http? Why NFS? etc... Let me save you the trouble; the answer to mot of that questions will be: historical reasons and that other solutions can can only dream of enjoying a fraction of the respect that BIND and Sendmail command in the industry Believe it or not ... I think the only void answer is because of tradition, that just seems to show that noone really remembers why some choice was made. BR, Erik alo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 08:45:59PM -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:31:34 pm Jerry McAllister wrote: On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 05:03:12PM -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 4:32:45 pm Erik Norgaard wrote: Jonathan McKeown wrote: Just as a matter of interest, if you want to rip sendmail out of the base system, which MTA would you like to replace it with? Or are you suggesting the system ship with no way to handle mail? This thread moving of topic from OP, but it is always fair to debate what should be considered a base system. Is an MTA a requirement or a remnant from history? Dear Erik: Contrary to your belief the thread isn't moving of topic from OP, it's just taking the same default route it has been taking for ages: 1) telling the OP the OS needs an MTA 2) telling the OP he can replace the default MTA 3) telling the OP he can remove given MTA from base 4) telling the OP about historical reason 5) Not telling the OP why has FreeBSD has left so many historical reason behind to persuit new goals but retained Sendmail as the default MTA for historical reasons. Sorry .. but that's the way it goes every time someone asks the same question. I will add one more that covers it best. Sendmail works just fine and there is no ACTUAL CURRENT reason to get rid of it.Years ago it had some weaknesses which have been fixed. I wonder what would have happened if Sir Isaac Newton followed the same line of though ... Or maybe there was an ACTUAL CURRENT reason to develop infinitesimal calculus ... which .. of course, by that time, nobody knew it even existed. Or maybe there was an ACTUAL CURRENT reason to discover the law of universal gravitation ... Weird.Try cutting down on caffeine. Or maybe .. not ... So, that leaves personal preference as the only real reason for wanting to replace it. Let me get this straight .. that means that every Linux distro, NetBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFlyBSD are all doing it just out of personal preference? Yup. In that case, if your personal preference is to replace it, go ahead. There are several candidates and an earlier post described well how to do it. Yes, that has already been pointed out quite a few times. As for putting it in ports and taking it out of base, well, some message system is often needed before ports are installed. Sendmail fills the bill.Some other could also, but since Sendmail works just fine and is already there, then it is. Fit the bill ... well.. so did the Geocentric model .. and it actually did work just as fine .. and even better yet since it also mantained the status quo ! ... but then Galileo came and you know the rest of the story ... Actually it didn't. It didn't describe observable conditions and events. jerry jerry Best Regards Gonzalo Nemmi And if an MTA is a requirement then asking which one is the best choice is also a fair question. An equally fair answer could be whichever change requires the least work. Indeed No different than asking, why is NIS still in the base? Why no ldap? why BIND, but no http? Why NFS? etc... Let me save you the trouble; the answer to mot of that questions will be: historical reasons and that other solutions can can only dream of enjoying a fraction of the respect that BIND and Sendmail command in the industry Believe it or not ... I think the only void answer is because of tradition, that just seems to show that noone really remembers why some choice was made. BR, Erik alo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
Gonzalo Nemmi wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:22:22 pm Lowell Gilbert wrote: I probably should move this bikeshed to freebsd-chat... I'd like the bikeshed blue, please. Also, since Sendmail has reached maturity, let's baptize it now instead of during infancy, and add a knob FEATURE(require_calvinism). Also, I'm attending the annual meeting of my Sendmail Users Anonymous Group (SMAUG) tomorrow (it's annual because there are SO FEW of us we had to scour the world to find a quorum and it makes economic sense to to meet just once a year), where I'll ask Pope Eric to call up troops to end this holy war on this list once and for all. I'm sharpening blades in the shop even as I write this! DEUS VULT 'Nuff ... please? Kevin Kinsey ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:00:25 -0400 Jerry McAllister jerr...@msu.edu wrote: Fit the bill ... well.. so did the Geocentric model .. and it actually did work just as fine .. and even better yet since it also mantained the status quo ! ... but then Galileo came and you know the rest of the story ... Actually it didn't. It didn't describe observable conditions and events. It appears that Copernicus built his bike shed 100 years before Galileo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernicus ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, Chris Rees wrote: 2009/10/27 Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, Chris Rees wrote: 2009/10/27 Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, Jonathan McKeown wrote: On Monday 26 October 2009 21:29:27 Yuri wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? What is this anti-sendmail obsession people have? The configuration is opaque, to put it kindly. Are you talking about sendmail.m4 or sendmail.cf? Because we stopped editing sendmail.cf by hand years ago. Then what are we using to edit sendmail.cf? The man page doesn't seem to be et up with verbosity on the subject. Let me guess: a gnome GUI? You guessed wrong. We use m4, which cuts out most of the crap that you had to write into sendmail.cf. You write sendmail.mc and compile it. Sendmail.mc on my system is less than 50 lines long, including comments. http://www.sendmail.org/m4/intro.html That's as poorly documented and incomprehensible as .cf by hand. What is your interest in sendmail? Are you connected with it in someway? Surely, yours could not be the opinion of someone who doesn't get a piece of O'Reilly's royalties. It's the same old crap, give the software away, sell the documentation. -- Lars Eighner http://www.larseighner.com/index.html 8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 5:16 PM, Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com wrote: You guessed wrong. We use m4, which cuts out most of the crap that you had to write into sendmail.cf. You write sendmail.mc and compile it. Sendmail.mc on my system is less than 50 lines long, including comments. http://www.sendmail.org/m4/intro.html That's as poorly documented and incomprehensible as .cf by hand. What is your interest in sendmail? Are you connected with it in someway? Surely, yours could not be the opinion of someone who doesn't get a piece of O'Reilly's royalties. It's the same old crap, give the software away, sell the documentation. well shit man - Eric's actually a super nice guy and has made some major contributions to computing so I reckon he deserves *some* respect for the work he's done on sendmail. and frankly I find it easier to setup a SMART_HOST in my .m4 and dist out my resulting configs to my servers in my production clusters. I also have the added benefit that i know sendmail is being tracked as part of the base system so it makes it easier for me to monitor patches w/o having to track ports. For more complex systems (my relay for example) - sure I use postfix, and freebsd makes this quite easy to do as well. if you don't want to use sendmail on your machines it's easy - just don't use it. -pete -- pete wright www.nycbug.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, pete wright wrote: On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 5:16 PM, Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com wrote: You guessed wrong. We use m4, which cuts out most of the crap that you had to write into sendmail.cf. You write sendmail.mc and compile it. Sendmail.mc on my system is less than 50 lines long, including comments. http://www.sendmail.org/m4/intro.html That's as poorly documented and incomprehensible as .cf by hand. What is your interest in sendmail? Are you connected with it in someway? Surely, yours could not be the opinion of someone who doesn't get a piece of O'Reilly's royalties. It's the same old crap, give the software away, sell the documentation. well shit man - Eric's actually a super nice guy and has made some major contributions to computing so I reckon he deserves *some* respect for the work he's done on sendmail. Evidently by making it necessary to learn yet another scripting language to configure it. Other than personal profit I cannot see why people are clinging like grim death to something this fubar. Really, let's go past this one more time: Sure, sendmail.cf is hard to work with so the solution is you learn m4! Did you look at the link he offered? How helpful is that? Beside which, m4 is a PORT. So if sendmail is not configurable without a port, why isn't it a port? -- Lars Eighner http://www.larseighner.com/index.html 8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 6:24 PM, Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com wrote: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, pete wright wrote: On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 5:16 PM, Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com wrote: You guessed wrong. We use m4, which cuts out most of the crap that you had to write into sendmail.cf. You write sendmail.mc and compile it. Sendmail.mc on my system is less than 50 lines long, including comments. http://www.sendmail.org/m4/intro.html That's as poorly documented and incomprehensible as .cf by hand. What is your interest in sendmail? Are you connected with it in someway? Surely, yours could not be the opinion of someone who doesn't get a piece of O'Reilly's royalties. It's the same old crap, give the software away, sell the documentation. well shit man - Eric's actually a super nice guy and has made some major contributions to computing so I reckon he deserves *some* respect for the work he's done on sendmail. Evidently by making it necessary to learn yet another scripting language to configure it. Other than personal profit I cannot see why people are clinging like grim death to something this fubar. Really, let's go past this one more time: ok i'm just gonna suggest you read up on the history of sendmail to gain some perspective on why/when it was written. i'm not saying that there are no issues with it - but i think some historical perspective would do you a world of good. regarding having to learn a new language i'm not sure about that as i wouldn't say i know m4 - but I can rtfm, and the default .mc files are actually well documented. so yea... Sure, sendmail.cf is hard to work with so the solution is you learn m4! Did you look at the link he offered? How helpful is that? Beside which, m4 is a PORT. So if sendmail is not configurable without a port, why isn't it a port? sure it's a port, sendmail is a port too. but that does not mean you need to install the port to compile custom .mc files for your server. in fact if you check out /etc/mail/Makefile you might notice that m4 is actually part of the base system: /usr/bin/m4 anywho i should stop feeding the troll. -p -- pete wright www.nycbug.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:24:38 -0500 (CDT), Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com wrote: Evidently by making it necessary to learn yet another scripting language to configure it. Other than personal profit I cannot see why people are clinging like grim death to something this fubar. Really, let's go past this one more time: Sure, sendmail.cf is hard to work with so the solution is you learn m4! Did you look at the link he offered? How helpful is that? Beside which, m4 is a PORT. So if sendmail is not configurable without a port, why isn't it a port? Can we go back to our regular hacking, please? m4 is not a port: $ which m4 /usr/bin/m4 and the thread is quickly spiraling down to the level of personal attacks. I use both Postfix and Sendmail. I'd probably prefer Postfix in the base system, but the only way this can happen is to sit down and actually _do_ the work it takes. Any takers are more than welcome... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 08:45:59PM -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:31:34 pm Jerry McAllister wrote: [snippage] So, that leaves personal preference as the only real reason for wanting to replace it. Let me get this straight .. that means that every Linux distro, NetBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFlyBSD are all doing it just out of personal preference? I'll speculate as to the reasons: NetBSD: probably wanted something smaller footprint-wise. OpenBSD: wanted something more secure. Dragonfly: started afresh, so could replace it without many headaches. RedHat: poor package management made it a pain to upgrade. FreeBSD: ? I can't think of a good reason why FreeBSD should get rid of it. Saying that, it would be neat if it was taken out of base and replaced with something minimal that could cope with the demands of cron and not much else. Then the user is expected to install a MTA of their choice out of ports. That would mean less code in base and fewer security advisories. jerry Best Regards Gonzalo Nemmi Regards, -- Frank Contact info: http://www.shute.org.uk/misc/contact.html ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 7:14 PM, Frank Shute fr...@shute.org.uk wrote: On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 08:45:59PM -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi wrote: On Tuesday 27 October 2009 7:31:34 pm Jerry McAllister wrote: [snippage] So, that leaves personal preference as the only real reason for wanting to replace it. Let me get this straight .. that means that every Linux distro, NetBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFlyBSD are all doing it just out of personal preference? I'll speculate as to the reasons: NetBSD: probably wanted something smaller footprint-wise. OpenBSD: wanted something more secure. Dragonfly: started afresh, so could replace it without many headaches. RedHat: poor package management made it a pain to upgrade. FreeBSD: ? I can't think of a good reason why FreeBSD should get rid of it. Saying that, it would be neat if it was taken out of base and replaced with something minimal that could cope with the demands of cron and not much else. Then the user is expected to install a MTA of their choice out of ports. That would mean less code in base and fewer security advisories. yea i like where you are going with this frank - perhaps when opensmtpd is done we'll be in the position to import this into the freebsd tree? it sounds like it might fit the bill :) -pete -- pete wright www.nycbug.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Wed, 28 Oct 2009, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:24:38 -0500 (CDT), Lars Eighner luvbeas...@larseighner.com wrote: Evidently by making it necessary to learn yet another scripting language to configure it. Other than personal profit I cannot see why people are clinging like grim death to something this fubar. Really, let's go past this one more time: Sure, sendmail.cf is hard to work with so the solution is you learn m4! Did you look at the link he offered? How helpful is that? Beside which, m4 is a PORT. So if sendmail is not configurable without a port, why isn't it a port? Can we go back to our regular hacking, please? m4 is not a port: $ which m4 /usr/bin/m4 Evidently my package database is corrupt in some way, because it shows m4 as an installed port. I wonder how that happened, how to fix it, and if it will bite if I leave it alone. -- Lars Eighner http://www.larseighner.com/index.html 8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
Lars Eighner wrote: Evidently my package database is corrupt in some way, because it shows m4 as an installed port. I wonder how that happened, how to fix it, and if it will bite if I leave it alone. The GNU version of m4 is a FreeBSD Port, devel/m4. The base system m4(1) was originally based on BSD 4.4 Lite m4, and then on a modified version from OpenBSD. It is supposed to be standards-compliant, but it does not support all GNU m4 extensions, so it is not used as often as devel/m4 is in Ports. So your package database is probably okay in this regard. b. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? Yuri ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
Yuri wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Are you sure about that? AFAIK, all system reports are sent with the sendmail binary. Steve ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
In response to Yuri y...@rawbw.com: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Quite a lot. In fact, anyone who properly installs FreeBSD as a server. Why isn't it moved to ports? Because an MTA has traditionally been part of a POSIX system. Besides, if it's not there, how are you going to send mail from things like cron? -- Bill Moran http://www.potentialtech.com http://people.collaborativefusion.com/~wmoran/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:29:27 -0700, Yuri y...@rawbw.com wrote: It's in /usr/sbin/sendmail. How many people actually use it? Very few. Why isn't it moved to ports? This questions comes up very often. You can find lots of reasons in one of the older threads about Sendmail, e.g. at: http://groups.google.com/group/fa.freebsd.stable/msg/166040f2d75547bc http://groups.google.com/group/mailing.freebsd.chat/msg/a9e850da1dba3fc2 http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc/msg/39f14b08bb752ca7 http://groups.google.com/group/mailing.freebsd.current/msg/3b73a04c9f5e6a19 Sendmail is _already_ part of the ports/ BTW, and it supports many knobs to build custom versions of Sendmail with or without IPv6, milter, NIS, SASL, TLS or LDAP support, and so on: keram...@kobe:/usr/ports/mail$ more sendmail/Makefile [...] # Options to define Features: # SENDMAIL_WITHOUT_IPV6=yes # SENDMAIL_WITHOUT_MILTER=yes # SENDMAIL_WITHOUT_NIS=yes [...] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?
How many people actually use it? Very few. Out of the 12 or 15 servers I run, only one do not use stock sendmail: the mail server. So one out of twelve is rather quite a lot... Olivier ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
