Re: how can i turn /dev/null into an MTA?
On 2009-04-14 15:33 +0200, Randy Kramer wrote:
> On Tuesday 14 April 2009 09:08:41 am Dirk wrote:
>> Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
>> > Unix without an MTA???
>
> To me, that's a wonderful idea--in fact, that's the way I ran my
> Mandriva2006 system for the last 3 years. I just used kmail like a
> Windows mail client, receiving mail (directly (from my ISP)) using pop3
> and sending mail (directly (to my ISP)) using SMTP.
Such a setup is quite common these days -- Ubuntu does not ship an MTA
in their default installation either. But when you think of the many
small tools that can send mail more or less automatically, an MTA still
makes sense. Even if these tools support SMTP (not all do), you have to
tell the SMTP server and your password to each of them.
With an MTA, you only have to configure _one_ program instead. And
sending mail may become faster as well -- your MUA does not have to wait
for the SMTP server's response. This is especially useful if it is not
multithreaded (as is the case in Emacs, for instance).
> I did find a way to put a soft linked file in my local kmail folders so
> I could get email sent to the administrator--this was something like a
> hard link to the normal location of root's email spool
> (maybe /var/mail/root?).
Well, for this to work you need an MTA that does local delivery anyway.
> Why would somebody need an MTA for a (normal) desktop?
Local delivery of messages from cron jobs is probably the most common
case. I would not like to dispense with that.
Sven
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