Re: make anacron a base package
On Wed, Mar 31, 1999 at 02:30:58PM -0600, John Goerzen wrote:
> > Exim is a drop-in replacement for sendmail.
>
> So exim understands and will use my sendmail.mc, sendmail.cf,
> mailertable, virtusertable, etc. files? That would be a neat trick,
> especially since there are several things in those files that I use
> which Exim doesn't support.
I meant as in 'it has /usr/sbin/sendmail almost identical to sendmail',
so all programs using it keep working normally.
Sendmail wasn't Debian default mailer, so the change of configuration
file from sendmail to exim is as important as for example change between
zmailer's and exim's config file.
It would, however, be nice if exim could use smail's config files
out-of-the box, since smail was the default MTA before exim.
Although I doubt that it is possible.
> > This is on the same machine:
> >
> > $ grep ^[^#] sendmail.cf | wc -l
> > 384
> > $ grep ^[^#] exim.conf | wc -l
> > 71
>
> And the relevance of this is....?
>
> First of all, this is an invalid comparison because some could have
> comments, others not.
In case you haven't noticed, the grep removes all lines with hashes,
that is, comments. And empty lines IIRC.
> Secondly, few people edit their .cf files
> directly anymore. I for one have never had to, despite very strange
> mail configurations.
Yes, but person I was replying to was mentioning the exim.conf file.
This was just to prove that exim.conf is actually a lot smaller and
more appropriate for in place editing.
Sendmail's .mc files are nice, too, but still less readable to a new
user than exim.conf. Well, you could say that this is only my opinion,
but...
> > This is in /usr/doc/sendmail:
> >
> > $ zcat changelog.Debian.gz | grep 'urgency=high' | wc -l
> > 19
>
> And again, what does this show? Sendmail has been around a LOT longer
> than exim. a LOT.
I know that very well. Still, new bugs and security flaws in sendmail
are being discovered these days. One would think that with software
*that* tested, it would have to be more bug-free? Apparently, not with
sendmail.
Exim is getting more and more users (and Debian is helping that),
but still, it only had one high urgency and one medium urgency upload.
> Furthermore, high-urgency things can be introduced
> by packaging issues, etc. Not only that, but the sendmail 8.9 series
> seems really good on security.
Yeah. Didn't you notice 8.9.1, 8.9.2, and 8.9.3? I remember that the
last two announcements got to BUGTRAQ, because of related security
fixes. Also, 8.9.3 had to get into slink on 10 Feb 1999 (it may seem
normal now, but then it was rather deep freeze), because of the severity
of problems it fixed.
If sendmail was the default mailer, more users would be forced to
upgrade more often.
> > Read: http://pobox.com/~djb/docs/maildisasters/sendmail.html .
>
> DJB has a lot of ideas about mail software that are rather, uhm,
> strange to say the least. I have heard that his latest qmail violates
> the SMTP RFC in an attempt to be excessively picky about a few things,
> althouh I haven't verified this.
I have also heard lot of bad things about him and his qmail, however,
that document is not about qmail.
> > And here's MHO: exim's config file is more readable (plus the wonderful
> > info documentation and nice comments inside the file generated by eximconfig)
>
> And what about sendmail.mc? Is it really that hard to read? Really
> now, it's pretty easy.
It is. Again, we come to the point where I say that exim.conf is *more*
readable. Darn. Degustibus non est disputandum.
> And there's the great sendmailconfig, too.
And there's the great eximconfig, too. ;) Eximconfig also generates
comments for exim.conf, that make it even more readable.
Hey, you, people who actually picked smail/exim for the default Debian
MTA, speak up! What were your reasons for not choosing sendmail?
--
enJoy -*/\*- http://jagor.srce.hr/~jrodin/
Reply to: