Re: jessie release goals
On 05/13/2013 07:08 PM, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> On 2013-05-07 23:54:36 +0800, Thomas Goirand wrote:
>> On 05/07/2013 04:00 AM, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
>>> This can be fine for some daemons/servers. For instance, for a web
>>> server, displaying a default web page is harmless. But what about a
>>> mail server? Any default config would probably lead to loss of mail
>>> if things like virtual alias domains are used.
>> If you set your MX pointer before setting-up your mail server,
>> then it's your fault if you loose some mails, and not at all
>> the fault of the way postfix (for example) is packaged.
> In one case, this was after a full reinstallation of the server (not
> Debian, but the problem would be the same). I didn't have the choice.
This is, IMO, a very special case.
> And removing the MX pointer several hours before the reinstallation
> would also have resulted in loss of mail.
Why do you think so? Normally, a mail server can be down
for up to a day, without any lost of mail.
> The cleanest solution, IMHO,
> would have been to use iptables to prevent SMTP connections before
> installing postfix, but for someone who doesn't know iptables yet,
> that's more complex than having the control on whether the daemon is
> started or not at install time.
I don't think iptables is more complex than postfix (in fact,
to some degree, it might even be more simple, considering
how complex postfix is). I do expect any administrator
handling postfix to also know iptables. Anyway, I don't think
this is a reason good enough to have postfix to not start
when you install it, and add one more step when configuring it.
You are also considering a specific case of the SMTP server,
where it is used to receive outbound emails. Sometimes, you
only install a mail server to handle system mails (like cron
jobs, and so on). In this case, it would really be not convenient
to have the daemon not starting by default.
Of course, YMMV depending on what you do with mail...
Thomas
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