Re: [desktop] Installation of mail server by default
On Sat, Mar 29, 2003 at 01:36:08PM -0600, Steve Greenland wrote:
> On 28-Mar-03, 02:37 (CST), Andreas Metzler <ametzler@downhill.at.eu.org> wrote:
> >
> > I don't get it. Why is "apt-get install postfix" "brute action"?
> >
> > Actually I don't even get the problem. Could you elaborate what the
> > "SMTP conflicts problem" is?
>
> This question still hasn't been answered.
>
> About once a year it comes up that we should support having multiple
> simultaneous MTA installations. No one ever able to supply a reason for
> this beyond "it would be cool.", nor agree on how it should work: this
> makes sense, because the very few people who actually do need two MTAs
> have such diverse reasons for doing this that there is little common
> ground. And aren't we talking about desktop systems?
Yes I thought so too.
> Now, if you want better transition between MTAs, so that if I have
> a basic exim setup, and I want to move to the equivalent postfix
> setup, 'apt-get install postfix" (or similar) keeps the appropriate
> configuration values (smart-host, accept delivery for systems x, y and
> z, etc.) then that's probably a worthwhile task.
>
> Yes, there's probably a better choice for default MTA for machines
> that will be "single-user" desktop systems. But how this leads to a
> requirement for multiple MTAs I don't understand.
I do not think my primary needs are not multiple MTAs.
As far as I am concerned, there should be only *one* MTA *running*
either as daemon or as inetd on normal system. Any other special
configuration should be only as intellectual interests. (I was
curious, I know this may not be practical.)
This is a separate question from whether we can install all these
programs as command to the system simultaneously. This enable it much
easy for us to install package and read its manuals if they are not in
separate packages. Come to think of it, this inaccessibility to
package information was the most annoying thing about SMTP package
conflict or any similar conflicts of this kind.
The latter should be easily possible if:
1. we activate initd script only for default mailer and run MTA as
daemon
2. commands sendmail/mailq/..., 2 approaches possible.
2a. symlink chain from sendmail/mailq/... are pointing to the
command offered by default mailer
2b. wrapper command sendmail/mailq/... execute appropriate command
pointed by the default mailer
3. inetd.conf entry for mailer is commented out.
I have to admit I not assessed impact of changing command name or
calling from symlink throughly.
If the scope of objective for installing multiple MTA "commands" is
limited to easy switching of MTA, it seems it is not impossible.
Problem is transition from using one MTA to another MTA while
maintaining a same state for the spool. As far as I know, nullmailer
use totally different spool than one used by exim.
Come to think of it, this difficulty is common to the challenge Steve
mentioned for sharing configuration values.
Osamu
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