Re: sendmail trouble
Bob Proulx wrote:
> James Vahn wrote:
>> I'm unsure why sendmail runs as root if exim/postfix don't.
>
> In order to deliver mail to the local user's mailbox the MDA (mail
> delivery agent) needs to run as the user. Same for being piped into a
> mail filter such as spamassassin. In order to switch to a user the
> program needs root capability. Also to bind to the network port 25
> (privileged ports below 1024) requires root. Since sendmail is one
> single program it is that program that runs as root. In Postfix there
> is a root run master program for that purpose. But the other tasks
> are run as a non-root user. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I'm still unsure as to what those other tasks would be.
> define(`SMART_HOST',`esmtp:smtp.$m.')dnl
> LOCAL_NET_CONFIG
> R$* < @ $* .$m. > $* $#esmtp $@ $2.$m $: $1 < @ $2.$m > $3
Horrible, isn't it.. But I believe you could have used a mailertable for
both examples. It's a first-match routing table that can also specify the
mailer to use. It's been a function of sendmail for a long time:
.my.domain xnet:%1.my.domain
uuhost1.my.doman suucp:uuhost1
.bitnet smtp:relay.bit.net
. relay:mail.smarthost.com
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