Re: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Brian Dessent]

Joaquin wrote:
> 
> I check the FAQ and I couldn't find any reference to this.  I noticed
> that exim is there, kewl!, but what about sendmail?  Was there any work
> on porting this?
> 
> BTW, I noticed that SFU3.5 seems to have a version of sendmail.

Maybe you could elaborate a little on why you want sendmail.  To my
knowledge there has been no work done to even begin considering
packaging sendmail for Cygwin, at least not officially (i.e. supported
by this mailing list, cygwin.com, and the setup.exe program.)  Someone,
somewhere might have done it and succeeded, but you're at the mercy of
Google in that case.  Part of me really wants to ask why in god's name
you'd want to inflict the utter crapulence of sendmail onto an otherwise
innocent system, but that's really just being snide.

If your intent is to use Windows+Cygwin+sendmail as a production mail
server, then you would be much better served (no pun intended) running
it on a native posix OS like Linux or FreeBSD, as there is a significant
performance and security impact of emulating Posix under Windows.

If you're just after 'sendmail compatibility' then both ssmtp and exim
provide symbolic links to /usr/sbin/sendmail.  So any script or other
type of app that wants to just send out email by invoking the sendmail
command should work fine.

Brian

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Re: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Brian . Kelly]

"Brian Dessent" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>@cygwin.com on 02/02/2004 01:10:44 AM

Please respond to [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Sent by:[EMAIL PROTECTED]


To:"'Cygwin List'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
cc:

Subject:Re: Plausibility of sendmail?

>> If your intent is to use Windows+Cygwin+sendmail as a production mail
>> server, then you would be much better served (no pun intended) running
>> it on a native posix OS like Linux or FreeBSD

Seems to me you have not worked for many Fortune 500 size organizations -
where almost ALL your hardware and software purchasing decisions are made
by folks who *PRIDE* themselves on their *LACK* of technical expertise - as
if such were somehow evidence of their inability to *MANAGE*. In fact,
being a technical guru can often be career death in such places as the
*can't do's* endlessly convince themselves that the *can do's* can't
"manage  people". Which begs the question - "WHAT DOES CHOOSING HARDWARE
HAVE TO DO WITH *MANAGING PEOPLE*" But they do it anyway. And of
course when such *beings* make such decisions, they do so with assumptions
like "all open source is BAD" (while their web servers are running Apache),
and the CHEAPEST thing is *GOOD* - Intel rather than Sun or HP. Oh, but we
can't run Linux because that's *bad* *unsupported* open source!!

Then - their job done, and budget shot, they give a nearly impossible task
to their *inferior guru's* that really should only be done in a Unix
enviroment - enter CYGWIN. Of course it's *bad* open source, but now the
*manager* has promised his/her management that this new functionality would
be ready by week's end - without consulting the guru's first. So cygwin is
agreed to as a *temporary* solution (with the understanding that temporary
in such organizations could be two decades instead of three).

This is how a need for something like sendmail on cygwin could conceivably
come about - happens ALL the time.


Joaquin wrote:
>
> I check the FAQ and I couldn't find any reference to this.  I noticed
> that exim is there, kewl!, but what about sendmail?  Was there any work
> on porting this?
>
> BTW, I noticed that SFU3.5 seems to have a version of sendmail.

Maybe you could elaborate a little on why you want sendmail.  To my
knowledge there has been no work done to even begin considering
packaging sendmail for Cygwin, at least not officially (i.e. supported
by this mailing list, cygwin.com, and the setup.exe program.)  Someone,
somewhere might have done it and succeeded, but you're at the mercy of
Google in that case.  Part of me really wants to ask why in god's name
you'd want to inflict the utter crapulence of sendmail onto an otherwise
innocent system, but that's really just being snide.

If your intent is to use Windows+Cygwin+sendmail as a production mail
server, then you would be much better served (no pun intended) running
it on a native posix OS like Linux or FreeBSD, as there is a significant
performance and security impact of emulating Posix under Windows.

If you're just after 'sendmail compatibility' then both ssmtp and exim
provide symbolic links to /usr/sbin/sendmail.  So any script or other
type of app that wants to just send out email by invoking the sendmail
command should work fine.

Brian

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"WellChoice, Inc." made the following
 annotations on 02/02/2004 07:02:31 AM
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Re: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Brian Dessent]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Seems to me you have not worked for many Fortune 500 size organizations -
> where almost ALL your hardware and software purchasing decisions are made
> by folks who *PRIDE* themselves on their *LACK* of technical expertise - as
> if such were somehow evidence of their inability to *MANAGE*. In fact,
> being a technical guru can often be career death in such places as the
> *can't do's* endlessly convince themselves that the *can do's* can't
> "manage  people". Which begs the question - "WHAT DOES CHOOSING HARDWARE
> HAVE TO DO WITH *MANAGING PEOPLE*" But they do it anyway. And of
> course when such *beings* make such decisions, they do so with assumptions
> like "all open source is BAD" (while their web servers are running Apache),
> and the CHEAPEST thing is *GOOD* - Intel rather than Sun or HP. Oh, but we
> can't run Linux because that's *bad* *unsupported* open source!!

Yes, PHB types can make really terrible decisions.  That doesn't mean
that because they're in charge those plans should become feasible, just
because "that's what the bossman wants."  My statement was only that
"you'd be much better served..." with a native posix OS, especially
where security and performance are required such as in a busy mail
server in the DMZ.

> enviroment - enter CYGWIN. Of course it's *bad* open source, but now the
> *manager* has promised his/her management that this new functionality would
> be ready by week's end - without consulting the guru's first. So cygwin is
> agreed to as a *temporary* solution (with the understanding that temporary
> in such organizations could be two decades instead of three).
> 
> This is how a need for something like sendmail on cygwin could conceivably
> come about - happens ALL the time.

If someone is crazy enough to want a production mailserver with Cygwin,
let them run Exim.  I guess my point was more that "sendmail is an old,
crufty, impossible to comprehend pile of rotten bits" and not "Cygwin
shouldn't have MTA packages available because it's unsuitable for
production use."  In other words, I view anything that could hasten
(even if infinitesimally) the demise of sendmail as a feature and not a
bug.

Brian

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Re: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Brian . Kelly]

>> If someone is crazy enough to want a production mailserver with Cygwin,
>> let them run Exim.

Point well taken. Having limited experience with mail servers in general, I
will certainly keep your advice filed away in the ole noodle for future
reference. Of course a lot of reasons that *crap* persists is because
there's a lot of folks who are familiar with and experienced with such
*crap*. For someone under the gun to come up with a quick fix, inevitably
they will attempt to implement the familiar. If sendmail REALLY deserves to
die, then keeping it out of the Cygwin distribution is something I would
understand, and probably support (as long as there are advertised
alternatives of course!)

Brian Kelly





"Brian Dessent" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>@cygwin.com on 02/02/2004 09:33:56 AM

Please respond to [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Sent by:[EMAIL PROTECTED]


To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
cc: (bcc: Brian Kelly/WTC1/Empire)

Subject:Re: Plausibility of sendmail?


[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Seems to me you have not worked for many Fortune 500 size organizations -
> where almost ALL your hardware and software purchasing decisions are made
> by folks who *PRIDE* themselves on their *LACK* of technical expertise -
as
> if such were somehow evidence of their inability to *MANAGE*. In fact,
> being a technical guru can often be career death in such places as the
> *can't do's* endlessly convince themselves that the *can do's* can't
> "manage  people". Which begs the question - "WHAT DOES CHOOSING HARDWARE
> HAVE TO DO WITH *MANAGING PEOPLE*" But they do it anyway. And of
> course when such *beings* make such decisions, they do so with
assumptions
> like "all open source is BAD" (while their web servers are running
Apache),
> and the CHEAPEST thing is *GOOD* - Intel rather than Sun or HP. Oh, but
we
> can't run Linux because that's *bad* *unsupported* open source!!

Yes, PHB types can make really terrible decisions.  That doesn't mean
that because they're in charge those plans should become feasible, just
because "that's what the bossman wants."  My statement was only that
"you'd be much better served..." with a native posix OS, especially
where security and performance are required such as in a busy mail
server in the DMZ.

> enviroment - enter CYGWIN. Of course it's *bad* open source, but now the
> *manager* has promised his/her management that this new functionality
would
> be ready by week's end - without consulting the guru's first. So cygwin
is
> agreed to as a *temporary* solution (with the understanding that
temporary
> in such organizations could be two decades instead of three).
>
> This is how a need for something like sendmail on cygwin could
conceivably
> come about - happens ALL the time.

If someone is crazy enough to want a production mailserver with Cygwin,
let them run Exim.  I guess my point was more that "sendmail is an old,
crufty, impossible to comprehend pile of rotten bits" and not "Cygwin
shouldn't have MTA packages available because it's unsuitable for
production use."  In other words, I view anything that could hasten
(even if infinitesimally) the demise of sendmail as a feature and not a
bug.

Brian

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"WellChoice, Inc." made the following
 annotations on 02/02/2004 10:07:12 AM
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confidential and/or privileged.  The information is intended solely for the individual 
or entity named above and access by anyone else is unauthorized.  If you are not the 
intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the contents of 
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received the message in error, and delete it. Release/Disclosure Statement


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Re: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Brian Dessent]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> >> If someone is crazy enough to want a production mailserver with Cygwin,
> >> let them run Exim.
> 
> Point well taken. Having limited experience with mail servers in general, I
> will certainly keep your advice filed away in the ole noodle for future
> reference. Of course a lot of reasons that *crap* persists is because
> there's a lot of folks who are familiar with and experienced with such
> *crap*. For someone under the gun to come up with a quick fix, inevitably
> they will attempt to implement the familiar. If sendmail REALLY deserves to
> die, then keeping it out of the Cygwin distribution is something I would
> understand, and probably support (as long as there are advertised
> alternatives of course!)

Well, I don't see sendmail dying anytime soon.  It's still running on
something like half of all mail servers, and I'm pretty sure it's still
the #1 MTA.  But, it's decades old and has reams and reams of security
bulletins, both past and present (and future!)  Security was just not
such a concern back before The Internet existed, when ARPAnet and this
new TCP/IP thing were all the rage.

It's configured with a "sendmail.cf" file that closely resembles line
noise and is so byzantine that it takes a 1232 page O'Reilly book to
explain it.  It's rumoured that some sendmail developers don't even
understand parts of the file.  The recommended advise is to never touch
it, but instead edit the more friendly .mc file which is passed through
a number of m4 macros to generate the .cf file.

It sticks around due to legacy, as far as I can tell.  It "just works"
at a number of places and nobody wants to be the person to rip it all
out and install something else.  It also has support for some really
anachronistic features (e.g. UUCP) that you likely won't find
elsewhere.  It's probably got the worst performance of the "big four",
but it can be made to do most of the things that you would ever want out
of an MTA, and since it's so old everything's at least documented pretty
well.

So, if you use Webmin to configure it, and you stay up to date with your
patches, and you aren't trying to run a whole enterprise's mail on a
Pentium then it will probably work fine.  I suppose it would be unfair
to call it crap, and you will always be able to find those who defend it
with the same level of fanaticism as a heated vi-vs-emacs argument.  And
to swing this back on-topic, I personally don't think it should be
propagated to new places where it has yet to exist, such as Cygwin,
especially when viable alternatives already exist there.

Brian

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RE: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Ken Thompson]

As far as whether it gets in the cygwin distribution, it is primarily a
function of whether someone is willing to port it to cygwin and maintain it.
Otherwise, it won't.  Someone asks about sendmail for cygwin periodically
but I have never seen anyone express an interest in actually doing the port
and seving as maintainer. From what Brian Dessant says about the state of
the code base, it is pretty obvious why.

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf
> Of Brian Dessent
> Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 10:45 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Plausibility of sendmail?
>
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > >> If someone is crazy enough to want a production mailserver
> with Cygwin,
> > >> let them run Exim.
> >
> > Point well taken. Having limited experience with mail servers
> in general, I
> > will certainly keep your advice filed away in the ole noodle for future
> > reference. Of course a lot of reasons that *crap* persists is because
> > there's a lot of folks who are familiar with and experienced with such
> > *crap*. For someone under the gun to come up with a quick fix,
> inevitably
> > they will attempt to implement the familiar. If sendmail REALLY
> deserves to
> > die, then keeping it out of the Cygwin distribution is something I would
> > understand, and probably support (as long as there are advertised
> > alternatives of course!)
>
> Well, I don't see sendmail dying anytime soon.  It's still running on
> something like half of all mail servers, and I'm pretty sure it's still
> the #1 MTA.  But, it's decades old and has reams and reams of security
> bulletins, both past and present (and future!)  Security was just not
> such a concern back before The Internet existed, when ARPAnet and this
> new TCP/IP thing were all the rage.
>
> It's configured with a "sendmail.cf" file that closely resembles line
> noise and is so byzantine that it takes a 1232 page O'Reilly book to
> explain it.  It's rumoured that some sendmail developers don't even
> understand parts of the file.  The recommended advise is to never touch
> it, but instead edit the more friendly .mc file which is passed through
> a number of m4 macros to generate the .cf file.
>
> It sticks around due to legacy, as far as I can tell.  It "just works"
> at a number of places and nobody wants to be the person to rip it all
> out and install something else.  It also has support for some really
> anachronistic features (e.g. UUCP) that you likely won't find
> elsewhere.  It's probably got the worst performance of the "big four",
> but it can be made to do most of the things that you would ever want out
> of an MTA, and since it's so old everything's at least documented pretty
> well.
>
> So, if you use Webmin to configure it, and you stay up to date with your
> patches, and you aren't trying to run a whole enterprise's mail on a
> Pentium then it will probably work fine.  I suppose it would be unfair
> to call it crap, and you will always be able to find those who defend it
> with the same level of fanaticism as a heated vi-vs-emacs argument.  And
> to swing this back on-topic, I personally don't think it should be
> propagated to new places where it has yet to exist, such as Cygwin,
> especially when viable alternatives already exist there.
>
> Brian
>
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Re: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Andrew DeFaria]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Seems to me you have not worked for many Fortune 500 size 
organizations - where almost ALL your hardware and software purchasing 
decisions are made by folks who *PRIDE* themselves on their *LACK* of 
technical expertise - as if such were somehow evidence of their 
inability to *MANAGE*. In fact, being a technical guru can often be 
career death in such places as the *can't do's* endlessly convince 
themselves that the *can do's* can't "manage people". Which begs the 
question - "WHAT DOES CHOOSING HARDWARE HAVE TO DO WITH *MANAGING 
PEOPLE*" But they do it anyway. And of course when such 
*beings* make such decisions, they do so with assumptions like "all 
open source is BAD" (while their web servers are running Apache), and 
the CHEAPEST thing is *GOOD* - Intel rather than Sun or HP. Oh, but we 
can't run Linux because that's *bad* *unsupported* open source!!

Then - their job done, and budget shot, they give a nearly impossible 
task to their *inferior guru's* that really should only be done in a 
Unix enviroment - enter CYGWIN. Of course it's *bad* open source, but 
now the *manager* has promised his/her management that this new 
functionality would be ready by week's end - without consulting the 
guru's first. So cygwin is agreed to as a *temporary* solution (with 
the understanding that temporary in such organizations could be two 
decades instead of three).

This is how a need for something like sendmail on cygwin could 
conceivably come about - happens ALL the time.
If they are so clueless as you suggest then one has to wonder why you 
tell them that you're running a Linux OS and using sendmail?!?

Otherwise simply get exim and use it. Works fine.
--
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Re: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Brian . Kelly]

> Andrew DeFaria wrote:
> If they are so clueless as you suggest then one has to wonder why you

> tell them that you're running a Linux OS and using sendmail?!?


They "know" that Linux is *open source* and *dangerous* - because that's
what the VERY political Server Team (who have sold out to Microsoft and all
their propaganda) tells them. The more Wintel boxes, the more *power* they
have. Since their job ends once the box is powered up and imaged with the
*approved and 'supported' corporate load*, their job is done. They could
CARE-A-LESS about anyone else's needs or problems. They run their own
monitoring software on the box to make sure there is no un-scheduled
downtime or lack of disk space. Trying to put Linux on the box would
DEFINITELY be noticed - and would probably result in dismissal. Beyond that
- they (Server Team) are'nt concerned about how the box is actually used
(assuming of course that you have been designated the owner of the
*resource* [which is different from owning the *box* itself - go figure]).
The Server Team has more political clout because they own so *many* boxes,
where you own only a *couple* of resources. Of course all the *boxes* are
simple clones, but that little detail is overlooked by upper management.
It's all a numbers game. So the Server Team's arguments win out over yours
98% of the time. Surely someone who manages a fleet of Cessna's knows more
about flying than one guy in an F-18! - or so the thinking apparently goes.



>> Brian.Kelly wrote:

>> Seems to me you have not worked for many Fortune 500 size
>> organizations - where almost ALL your hardware and software purchasing
>> decisions are made by folks who *PRIDE* themselves on their *LACK* of
>> technical expertise - as if such were somehow evidence of their
>> inability to *MANAGE*. In fact, being a technical guru can often be
>> career death in such places as the *can't do's* endlessly convince
>> themselves that the *can do's* can't "manage people". Which begs the
>> question - "WHAT DOES CHOOSING HARDWARE HAVE TO DO WITH *MANAGING
>> PEOPLE*" But they do it anyway. And of course when such
>> *beings* make such decisions, they do so with assumptions like "all
>> open source is BAD" (while their web servers are running Apache), and
>> the CHEAPEST thing is *GOOD* - Intel rather than Sun or HP. Oh, but we
>> can't run Linux because that's *bad* *unsupported* open source!!
>>
>> Then - their job done, and budget shot, they give a nearly impossible
>> task to their *inferior guru's* that really should only be done in a
>> Unix enviroment - enter CYGWIN. Of course it's *bad* open source, but
>> now the *manager* has promised his/her management that this new
>> functionality would be ready by week's end - without consulting the
>> guru's first. So cygwin is agreed to as a *temporary* solution (with
>> the understanding that temporary in such organizations could be two
>> decades instead of three).
>>
>> This is how a need for something like sendmail on cygwin could
>> conceivably come about - happens ALL the time.

> Andrew DeFaria wrote:

> If they are so clueless as you suggest then one has to wonder why you
> tell them that you're running a Linux OS and using sendmail?!?

> Otherwise simply get exim and use it. Works fine.
--
If you think that there is good in everybody, you haven't met everybody.



"WellChoice, Inc." made the following
 annotations on 02/02/2004 01:08:25 PM
--
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RE: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Joaquin]

Hi.

Essentially, I would probaly never utilize Cygwin as a production
system.  Actually, truth be told, I would never personally use Windows
as a prodcution system.  The thought just scares me.  But I don't want
to go there...

However, I do use Windows as a development system, where I test
client-server scripts/programs using a lot of Open Source, some on
cygwin, some outside of cygwin.  I would want to test a REAL sendmail
program for these development scenarios.

Lastly, my professor REQUIRED us to use sendmail for our Perl
CGI/DBI/mail projects.  There was no choice in the matter.  The code
would be deployed on the college system, which is a Linux system.  My
development machine is a small tiny VIAO laptop running Windows XP.  I
would prefer to develop the whole application on my system, at a
relaxing coffee shop, and sendmail will allow me to do that.  Otherwise,
I am forced to use the horribly maintained lab system.

 - Joaquin

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Dessent
> Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2004 10:11 PM
> To: 'Cygwin List'
> Subject: Re: Plausibility of sendmail?
>
>
> Joaquin wrote:
> >
> > I check the FAQ and I couldn't find any reference to this.
> I noticed
> > that exim is there, kewl!, but what about sendmail?  Was there any
> > work on porting this?
> >
> > BTW, I noticed that SFU3.5 seems to have a version of sendmail.
>
> Maybe you could elaborate a little on why you want sendmail.
> To my knowledge there has been no work done to even begin
> considering packaging sendmail for Cygwin, at least not
> officially (i.e. supported by this mailing list, cygwin.com,
> and the setup.exe program.)  Someone, somewhere might have
> done it and succeeded, but you're at the mercy of Google in
> that case.  Part of me really wants to ask why in god's name
> you'd want to inflict the utter crapulence of sendmail onto
> an otherwise innocent system, but that's really just being snide.
>
> If your intent is to use Windows+Cygwin+sendmail as a
> production mail server, then you would be much better served
> (no pun intended) running it on a native posix OS like Linux
> or FreeBSD, as there is a significant performance and
> security impact of emulating Posix under Windows.
>
> If you're just after 'sendmail compatibility' then both ssmtp
> and exim provide symbolic links to /usr/sbin/sendmail.  So
> any script or other type of app that wants to just send out
> email by invoking the sendmail command should work fine.
>
> Brian
>
> --
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>
>



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RE: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Joaquin]

On another angle for this discussion.  Consider that for one M$ $FU 3.5
has sendmail.  Before this many commercial solutions charging quite a
lot of $$ for sendmail under Windows.  Microsoft even compiled a version
of sendmail for the earliest versions of Windows NT 3.51 long ago and
posted it on their ftp server.  Other companies made sendmail-look-alike
programs that could be scripted.

There is demand there, but it is not so obvious.


 - Joaquin



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Re: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Brian Dessent]

Joaquin wrote:

> Lastly, my professor REQUIRED us to use sendmail for our Perl
> CGI/DBI/mail projects.  There was no choice in the matter.  The code
> would be deployed on the college system, which is a Linux system.  My
> development machine is a small tiny VIAO laptop running Windows XP.  I
> would prefer to develop the whole application on my system, at a
> relaxing coffee shop, and sendmail will allow me to do that.  Otherwise,
> I am forced to use the horribly maintained lab system.

But Exim provides a sendmail-compatible interface, and a symlink to
/usr/sbin/sendmail.  Anything that expects to call sendmail from the
command line should work fine with Exim, including all those perl
modules.  Even if you are doing something obscure that absolutely
requires sendmail, then you should still be able to develop and test the
other 99% of the app on your laptop with Exim, without any actual
sendmail.

The notion of requiring a specific MTA boggles my mind.  Sure, require a
sendmail-compatible MTA, fine, but needing a genuine sendmail?

Brian

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RE: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Karl M]

Hi All...

There were some strong opinions expressed on both sides about whether 
sendmail is a good thing
or not...but the bottom line is that no one has offered to maintain sendmail 
as a package under
Cygwin. If you want to do that, I don't think that anyone would stop you. 
There is presently a
direct replacement available under cygwin.

Why is this thread living on?

Thanks,

...Karl


From: "Joaquin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Plausibility of sendmail?
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 21:26:57 -0800
On another angle for this discussion.  Consider that for one M$ $FU 3.5
has sendmail.  Before this many commercial solutions charging quite a
lot of $$ for sendmail under Windows.  Microsoft even compiled a version
of sendmail for the earliest versions of Windows NT 3.51 long ago and
posted it on their ftp server.  Other companies made sendmail-look-alike
programs that could be scripted.
There is demand there, but it is not so obvious.

 - Joaquin



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Re: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Christopher Faylor]

On Fri, Feb 06, 2004 at 06:31:02AM -0800, Karl M wrote:
>There were some strong opinions expressed on both sides about whether
>sendmail is a good thing or not...but the bottom line is that no one
>has offered to maintain sendmail as a package under Cygwin.  If you
>want to do that, I don't think that anyone would stop you.  There is
>presently a direct replacement available under cygwin.
>
>Why is this thread living on?

Because this is the cygwin mailing list.  It is the rule that discussion
must go on past the point where there is an obvious solution.

The solution here, is, of course, for someone to package sendmail and offer
it as a cygwin package following the rules which are documented on the
cygwin web site.

Hmm.  I think it is time for me to send my "You know you're a cygwin user,
if..." email.

cgf

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RE: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Joaquin]

> But Exim provides a sendmail-compatible interface, and a
> symlink to /usr/sbin/sendmail.  Anything that expects to call
> sendmail from the command line should work fine with Exim,
> including all those perl modules.  Even if you are doing
> something obscure that absolutely requires sendmail, then you
> should still be able to develop and test the other 99% of the
> app on your laptop with Exim, without any actual sendmail.

That is great.  I didn't know that.  This will help.

Also, out of curiosity are the mails archived the same way as well?

> The notion of requiring a specific MTA boggles my mind.

I share the same opinion.  Trust me.  They also expect me to use their
notoriously outdated unmanaged hacked Linux system with outdated Perl 5
and outdated CGI.pm modules with outdated DBI modules. :'(  At one
college, it was only this quarter they discovered ssh and scp. :-(

What's sad is that my Sony Picturebook (12"x5" laptop) is more powerful
than the server.  But hey, I guess it'll put hair on my chest. :-)



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Re: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Brian Dessent]

Joaquin wrote:

> > But Exim provides a sendmail-compatible interface, and a
> > symlink to /usr/sbin/sendmail.  Anything that expects to call
> > sendmail from the command line should work fine with Exim,
> > including all those perl modules.  Even if you are doing
> > something obscure that absolutely requires sendmail, then you
> > should still be able to develop and test the other 99% of the
> > app on your laptop with Exim, without any actual sendmail.
> 
> That is great.  I didn't know that.  This will help.
> 
> Also, out of curiosity are the mails archived the same way as well?

Are you referring to local delivery?  Exim by default delivers to
standard 'mbox' files in /var/spool for local users, just like
sendmail.  However, it could be configured for other formats like
Maildir (with a managed mount), or processed with procmail, forwarded,
piped, etc.  Basically all the standard unix mail things are supported.

Brian

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RE: Plausibility of sendmail?

[AG]

I didn't want to send this to the whole [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list,
but when I googled for "cygwin sendmail" Brian's email asking why
in the world anyone would want to run sendmail on cygwin came up
first.

Here's why I am interested:

(0) I am *not* interested in running a production mail server
under CYGWIN

(1) I want to use CYGWIN to allow me to use NMH to read email
on my TabletPC running Windows XP TabletPC edition - and to finally
allow me to get off Microsoft Outlook.

I want to read email on my TabletPC because, well, I *like* the TabletPC
even if it is not UNIX. And Linux does not yet run on the TabletPC and
preserve many of the useful TabletPC features.

(By the way, I do not want to run NMH on VMware on my TabletPC 
because I have run VMware, in the past, and find that VMware is much 
more of a hassle than CYGWIN.)

NMH can be configured to send email directly to an SMTP server,
but this is not sufficient to meet my needs
   a) this is a TabletPC, a mobile device, which frequently is not 
   connected.  I.e. outgoing mail needs to be queued and sent
   later when the outgoing SMTP server is accessible.
   b) I need to route email selectively: my company mail is not
   supposed to go through my personal, non-company, ISP,
   and vice versa.

In my limited understanding I require more than just connecting
to an SMTP server; I need a mail transport agent that can queue
outgoing mail for several different outgoing mail servers.


Why SendMail?   Yes, I know just how horrible sendmail is.
I welcome advice on alternatives, such as exim or ssmtp.

The main reason I am interested in using SendMail on CYGWIN
with NMH is that NMH already has support for talking to SendMail:
in /usr/local/nmh/mts.conf, you can just say "SendMail", and it is
supposed to work. 

Yes, that leaves the ugly job of doing a sendmail.cf;
but my configuration is simple enough that I can crib most of
it.

Now, I have never used ssmtp or exim.  Are they really drop in replacements
for sendmail from the commandline / protocol level?   (Not from the
sendmail.cf file level.) 

I.e. if I configure NMH by putting the path to exim in the SendMail entry in mts.conf,
will it just work?








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RE: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Larry Hall]

At 02:17 AM 2/15/2004, AG you wrote:
>I didn't want to send this to the whole [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list,
>but when I googled for "cygwin sendmail" Brian's email asking why
>in the world anyone would want to run sendmail on cygwin came up
>first.
>
>Here's why I am interested:
>
>(0) I am *not* interested in running a production mail server
>under CYGWIN
>
>(1) I want to use CYGWIN to allow me to use NMH to read email
>on my TabletPC running Windows XP TabletPC edition - and to finally
>allow me to get off Microsoft Outlook.
>
>I want to read email on my TabletPC because, well, I *like* the TabletPC
>even if it is not UNIX. And Linux does not yet run on the TabletPC and
>preserve many of the useful TabletPC features.
>
>(By the way, I do not want to run NMH on VMware on my TabletPC 
>because I have run VMware, in the past, and find that VMware is much 
>more of a hassle than CYGWIN.)
>
>NMH can be configured to send email directly to an SMTP server,
>but this is not sufficient to meet my needs
>   a) this is a TabletPC, a mobile device, which frequently is not 
>   connected.  I.e. outgoing mail needs to be queued and sent
>   later when the outgoing SMTP server is accessible.
>   b) I need to route email selectively: my company mail is not
>   supposed to go through my personal, non-company, ISP,
>   and vice versa.
>
>In my limited understanding I require more than just connecting
>to an SMTP server; I need a mail transport agent that can queue
>outgoing mail for several different outgoing mail servers.
>
>
>Why SendMail?   Yes, I know just how horrible sendmail is.
>I welcome advice on alternatives, such as exim or ssmtp.
>
>The main reason I am interested in using SendMail on CYGWIN
>with NMH is that NMH already has support for talking to SendMail:
>in /usr/local/nmh/mts.conf, you can just say "SendMail", and it is
>supposed to work. 
>
>Yes, that leaves the ugly job of doing a sendmail.cf;
>but my configuration is simple enough that I can crib most of
>it.
>
>Now, I have never used ssmtp or exim.  Are they really drop in replacements
>for sendmail from the commandline / protocol level?   (Not from the
>sendmail.cf file level.) 
>
>I.e. if I configure NMH by putting the path to exim in the SendMail entry in mts.conf,
>will it just work?


Sounds to me like you want to read up on exim  to 
see what it can do and if it will work for you.  Discussion of exim's 
capabilities compared to sendmail is really off-topic for this list.



--
Larry Hall  http://www.rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.  (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
838 Washington Street   (508) 893-9889 - FAX
Holliston, MA 01746 


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Re: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Robert R Schneck]

AG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> NMH can be configured to send email directly to an SMTP server,
> but this is not sufficient to meet my needs
>a) this is a TabletPC, a mobile device, which frequently is not 
>connected.  I.e. outgoing mail needs to be queued and sent
>later when the outgoing SMTP server is accessible.
>b) I need to route email selectively: my company mail is not
>supposed to go through my personal, non-company, ISP,
>and vice versa.
>
> In my limited understanding I require more than just connecting
> to an SMTP server; I need a mail transport agent that can queue
> outgoing mail for several different outgoing mail servers.

In principle ssmtp is a drop-in replacement from sendmail, but it 
doesn't have full sendmail functionality; it will ignore or bomb on 
most command-line options.

All that ssmtp can do is forward mail to an SMTP server.
It can choose which server selectively based on the From address.
It doesn't queue; but I use it on a frequently unconnected machine, with 
a homegrown script to queue mail in such a way that I can ssmtp it 
later.  ssmtp has the benefit of being trivial to configure.

Exim is much more powerful, and almost certainly can be used as a 
complete drop-in sendmail replacement in the way you want.

Robert


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Re: Plausibility of sendmail?

[AG]

> Sounds to me like you want to read up on exim  to 
> see what it can do and if it will work for you.  Discussion of exim's 
> capabilities compared to sendmail is really off-topic for this list.

Agreed.

But as I responded to Brian earlier in private email:
a bit of googling reveals problem reports describing
why EXIM is not 100% compatible with sendmail,
at least from the point of view of NMH used in
a TMDA spam filtering configuration.

Is it compatible enough for me to use?  Well, I'll
suppose I'll see.  



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Re: Plausibility of sendmail?

[Christopher Faylor]

On Sun, Feb 15, 2004 at 01:55:44PM -0800, AG wrote:
>>Sounds to me like you want to read up on exim  to
>>see what it can do and if it will work for you.  Discussion of exim's
>>capabilities compared to sendmail is really off-topic for this list.
>
>Agreed.
>
>But as I responded to Brian earlier in private email: a bit of googling
>reveals problem reports describing why EXIM is not 100% compatible with
>sendmail, at least from the point of view of NMH used in a TMDA spam
>filtering configuration.
>
>Is it compatible enough for me to use?  Well, I'll suppose I'll see.

Can we stop discussing this now?  Whether it is compatible for you
or not is really irrelevant to the cygwin mailing list population.

If you or someone else wants to offer to maintain sendmail as a package
then they should go through the very simple package submission process.
Otherwise, I don't see any reason to continue this discussion.  We don't
add packages on an as-needed basis.  We add them on an as-volunteered
basis.
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