Re: Bug#275685: ITP: msmtp -- smtp client which can be used as a smtp plugin with mutt
On Sun, Oct 10, 2004 at 01:21:44PM +0200, Christian Surchi wrote:
> Il sab, 2004-10-09 alle 17:48, martin f krafft ha scritto:
> > > I think it's not a right comparison, nullmail is an MTA. and
> > > AFAIK, msmtp is not an MTA:
> >
> > it transports mail to the next relay, right?
> > nullmailer is a "simple relay-only mail transport agent."
> >
> > what's the difference?
>
> Deep difference. Our mail-transport-agents are able to behave as daemon,
> listening on 25 port.
This is not true, since not required by policy. Policy says:
11.6. Mail transport, delivery and user agents
| (...) the interface to send a mail message is `/usr/sbin/sendmail' (as
| per the FHS).
/usr/sbin/sendmail is guaranteed to work if you have
mail-transport-agent, but port 25 to localhost isn't.
So, any package providing /usr/sbin/sendmail, and, when correctly
configured, gets mail on that interface off to the recipient, _is_ a
mail-transport-agent, MTA. ssmtp is one, nullmailer is also one.
Note that a MTA isn't required to know ANYTHING about smtp. Suppose a
package provides an sendmail that is an alias for 'ssh mailhub
/usr/sbin/sendmail', then that package is a MTA.
> msmtp doesn't, and it's the same for nail. Do you think that nail
> could be an MTA? Do you think that any evolution of mail(1) could be
> seen as an MTA, only because is able to "speak" smtp?
> :o
mail currently is a MUA, it will communicate with sendmail, i.e.,
require a MTA to get its mail off.
> > > I think that msmtp simply will take the place of sendmail binary
> > > called by mutt.
Then msmtp is just like any MTA, but accepts mail on a different binary
(the msmtp binary in stead of sendmail), so it won't be used by any
program unless specificially configured. IMHO, it'd be better if mstmp
were packaged as a real MTA, providing /usr/sbin/sendmail, so that ALL
programs (and not only mutt) can take advantage of it, and don't need
special configuration. Then msmtp is an alternative to ssmtp and
nullmailer, with a different featureset.
--Jeroen
--
Jeroen van Wolffelaar
Jeroen@wolffelaar.nl (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357)
http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl
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