Re: design issues in debian packages
On Wed, 19 Dec 2001 10:01, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> Previously Russell Coker wrote:
> > No! Programs that mailbomb root are EVIL.
>
> Crap, all programs that mailbomb are evil, but crontabs that mail errors
> are useful and have been in use for ages. They just need to be careful
> not to turn into mailbombs, and Matt has nicely done that
> in the latest upload. Don't force everyone to install logcheck just
> because you don't want emails from cron.
Logcheck installation isn't forced. If someone doesn't want to install
logcheck then they can use whatever other proceedures they want for viewing
logs and then take appropriate action. Other system programs in common use
such as named only send errors to syslog not email, so why should this be
different?
Sending lots of mail is bad. For small end-user systems such as Brian's
there is no guarantee that mail will be read before the disk fills up (lots
of people don't read mail to root).
For large setups such practices aren't viable either. Consider a case where
you have 50 servers running a variety of programs administered by a team of a
dozen people. When a cron job runs wild and emails everyone it doesn't gain
anything as often such mail isn't read (some companies I've worked for have
had mail filters to stop mail from applications that are known to send a lot
because of machines in other departments mail bombing), and anyway if the
program stops working then THAT will be what causes it to be fixed not some
error messages anyway.
--
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