Re: Starting MTA: why does it take so long?
On Thursday 06 September 2007 23:28, Jeff D wrote:
> On Thu, 6 Sep 2007, Chris wrote:
> > On Thursday 06 September 2007 21:35, Celejar wrote:
> >> On Thu, 6 Sep 2007 21:13:02 +0200
> >>
> >> Chris <list.hurschler@gmx.de> wrote:
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> I have several desktop systems, and regadless of whether I leave exim4
> >>> unconfigured, or setup for local system use only, it takes quite a
> >>> while to start on boot.
> >>>
> >>> I don't really know what the MTA is supposed to do on a laptop or
> >>> desktop system, but I've read that it shouldn't be uninstallted. Is
> >>> this really the case?
> >>
> >> It shouldn't be uninstalled since many daemons and system management
> >> tasks report via email, and they expect to find an MTA to send the mail
> >> with.
> >>
> >> If your system isn't connected to the internet on boot, have you
> >>
> >> configured minimal-dns? From 'dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config':
> >>> In normal mode of operation Exim does DNS lookups at startup, and when
> >>> │ │ receiving or delivering messages. This is for logging purposes
> >>> and │ │ allows keeping down the number of hard-coded values in the
> >>> │ │ configuration.
> >>> │ │
> >>> │ │ If this system does not have a DNS full service
> >>> resolver available at │ │ all times (for example if its Internet
> >>> access is a dial-up line using │ │ dial-on-demand), this might
> >>> have unwanted consequences. For example, │ │ starting up Exim
> >>> or running the queue (even with no messages waiting) │ │ might
> >>> trigger a costly dial-up-event. │
> >>> │
> >>> │ │ This
> >>> option should be selected if this system is using Dial-on-Demand. │
> >>> │ If it has always-on Internet access, this option should be
> >>> disabled. >
> >>>
> >>> Thanks for any suggestions,
> >>>
> >>> Chris
> >>
> >> Celejar
> >> --
> >
> > Thanks, I tried that and it didn't help, but I'm not sure I know which of
> > the five types of setup choices really applies to me, and I'll have to
> > read up some more on that.
> >
> > I have to say that I'm actually only interested in using Debian as a
> > desktop system, and sort of feel like it is making me install a mail
> > server. I wouldn't care if choosing "no configuration at this time"
> > didn't cause problems, but in my case it seems to be timing out on boot.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > C
>
> Theres always the option of disabling it all together.
>
> update-rc.d -f exim4 remove
>
> But, as others have said, its good to have a MTA running for notifications
> like cron, logcheck and others to go out. I would possibley install
> exim4-daemon-light, set delivery to local only, check to make sure your
> hostname is in /etc/hosts and set hosts in /etc/nsswitch.conf to: hosts:
> files dns
>
I have
ii exim4 4.67-8 meta-package to ease Exim MTA (v4) installat
ii exim4-base 4.67-8 support files for all Exim MTA (v4) packages
ii exim4-config 4.67-8 configuration for the Exim MTA (v4)
ii exim4-daemon-light 4.67-8 lightweight Exim MTA (v4) daemon
so I guess "light" got installed automatically at some point, because I didn't do it myself.
I'll try what you suggest.
Thanks,
Chris
--
C. Hurschler
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