On Sun, Feb 17, 2002 at 05:59:31AM +0000, Anthony Rowe wrote:
> Debian installs with Exim as the default mta but many users (especially
> dial-up users) only need the mta to hand their mail to a smarthost.
> sSMTP is easily configured to hand over outgoing mail to an ISP's smtp
> server, since that is the only thing sSMTP does. Exim is very difficult
> to configure to do this (even by selecting option #2 for dialup in
> eximconfig).
Yes, exim's default configuration even selecting a smarthost behaves very
little like ssmtp, which is of course much more intelligent and clearly a
wiser choice for a dialup account using a smarthost. However, the default
is exim for a reason.
First, it is not currently possible to install both exim and ssmtp. They
conflict with eachother, as they should. Packages of priority Standard
and above may not conflict, according to policy. Actually, optional
packages can't either (or at least policy DID say that was a no-no, and it
probably still does - not that anyone seems to listen of course!) Since
both cannot be installed, they cannot both be standard.
An easy Debian installation project might ignore this in favor of giving
you a more intelligent wizard-type thing for setting up mail on your
system and use ssmtp when it's all that's needed and exim/postfix/whatever
when a bigger MTA is called for. But for the most part Debian's policies
are better followed than not and ssmtp might belong better in a dialup
networking task.
--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@bluecherry.net> Do not write in this space
California, n.:
From Latin "calor", meaning "heat" (as in English "calorie" or
Spanish "caliente"); and "fornia'" for "sexual intercourse" or
"fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex."
-- Ed Moran
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