Re: [desktop] Installation of mail server by default
Hi,
On Sat, Mar 15, 2003 at 10:06:39AM +0000, Matthew Forrester wrote:
> I always thought the installation of EXIM by default was rather strange,
That is a minor symptom but it is not the core of the SMTP conflicts
problem. (I love exim. As for the default exim, smarthost is the one
to use.) Bob's concern for postfix is also my concern.
The real problem is while xdm, gdm, kdm, wdm, ...which suffer similar
challenge already figured out a reasonable way (not yet optimal way) to
be installed on the system while not activating all the daemons. But
MTAs have been conflicting each other causing complication. Here we
should note the fact no normal configuration of xdm uses multiple xdm
but in rare occasion, we can run multiple of these software in different
console. The similar can be said for MTA. No sane MTA configuration
run multiple of them but they can be run in different ports etc if one
wish to make weird configuration.
This effect of conflict is much harsh since exim is "Priority:
important" and others has been pushed to "Priority: extra" due to their
conflicts.
> If you want a mail server your almost certainly going to want a specific
> mail server, and after all your only going to want one per network.
I have many SMTP servers on LAN including nullmailer. Let's keep this
out of discussion for now.
> A sensible Idea would be to have nullmailer installed. none of my
> debian using friends knew about nullmailer, but were well chuffed when
> i told them about it, as they could get rid of the MTA on there
> workstations (which serves no other purpose except a potential
> security problem, use of hdd space and stopping apt complaining about
> not having an mta).
Nullmailer, if it is improved to do minimal local delivery, it will be
much useful as the default MTA for WS. Also using multiple SMTP server
like SSMTP is also desirable. (Did nullmailer mail root/daemon mails to
remote or local non-user? ...)
Anyway, back to the core of the problem. If the problem of "conflict"
is resolved, we can install any MTAs with much less pain. Let's think
about solving this step-by-step.
1. exim is "Priority: important".
This is the problem which requires us to use brute action to remove exim
from system to install other MTAs. If we make a empty package mta_*.deb
as "Priority: important" package which sets "Depends: exim |
mail-transport-agent" and all real MTA packages set "Provides:
mail-transport-agent" and "Priority: standard", then I think this
problem is solved. As for MTA packages, "exim", "postfix", "ssmtp",
"nullmailer" and possibly "qmail (non-free)" are candidates or this.
(Am I technically correct here?)
2. exim conflicts with other MTA
If we have init script for all MTAs written like "xdm", we have only one
active MTA daemon. Also identifying which one is active is relatively
easy. (We need to keep an eye on how Branden refines remaining
xdm/xsession issues. It has room for improvement but much better
situation than MTAs. Newer SSMTP, if I remember correctly, had this
feature added so I will not lose any local mail. Unfortunately, SSMTP
does not have queue capability for remote mail.)
3. sendmail, mailq, rsmtp commands overlap between programs.
I think postinst script should take care this conflict depending on
which daemon is active.
I am not quite sure about the exact detail of this implementation yet
but I hope I made a reasonable explanation for the direction for SMTP
conflict resolution plan.
Osamu
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