[Gllug] I found this link

[Bruce Richardson]

On Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 10:54:12AM +0100, John Edwards wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 22, 2001 at 07:44:18PM -0700, Mike Addicks wrote:
> > I found this link below. I have the same exact problem did you ever get
> > a resolution?

There's a thread on uk.comp.os.linux about Sendmail on Red Hat.  The
unanimous opinion in it is that RH mess with their sendmail rpms in ways
that may make things easier for newbies with a default install but which
create real headaches for anyone trying to customise the mail set-up.
This was also my experience when I used RH and sendmail.  I'm on a
mail-admin mailing list and all the RH users either roll their own from
source or get non-RH rpms (for all the mtas, not just sendmail).

> May I take the opportunity to recomend a saner mail server than sendmail ?
> Qmail, exim and postfix are all easier to setup and maintain, and have a 
> shorter history of security and bug fixes.

Of course, they have a shorter history full stop.  But I would second
that.  Both exim and postfix are far simpler to configure, much faster
and theoretically more secure. 

Sendmail did have a major code audit a while back and there haven't been
any major exploits since but the fact remains that it is far more
complex and so runs a higher risk of improper configuration leading to
exposure.  But it's still a monolithic beast which runs suid root.  In
contrast, Postfix never runs as root and is chrooted by default.  Exim
runs as root part of the time but can be made to run as specific users
(with a high degree of configurability) for specific processes.

Sendmail is simply much more complex than is needed in 99.9% of
situations.  IMO the only reason to run it (apart from where you have a
site that genuinely needs its complexity) is to learn how to run
Sendmail if you think this will be useful in your career.  There is a
well-paid niche for skilled, experienced Sendmail admins (though a more
deathly boring one I cannot imagine).

Qmail also shares the advantages of Postfix and Exim but suffers the
major disadvantage of being the creation of a major-league prick.  It's
not just that his attitude is unnecessary, it actually has a negative
effect on the software he produces.  He has a cavalier attitude to
internet conventions which he feels are stupid.  Qmail has been known to
bring down other mail set-ups when trying to deliver a backlog of mail
as quickly as possible, behaviour some call (in the context of the
internet) pathological.  This has been raised with him and if you look
at the archives of the qmail lists you'll see that he considers this to
be the fault of the "inferior" software produced by others.

-- 
Bruce

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
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