[ale] alterntive to sendmail

[Jeff Hubbs]

Michael -

Now I don't feel so bad!

There is a possibility that I may be doing some MTA install/config in
the near future and when I started looking in to postfix, I was taken a
bit aback by the complexity of it all.  I had configured and worked with
MTA software before under Banyan VINES and VMS c. 1990 and was also
tangentially involved in X.400 implementations, so I wasn't *totally*
lost, but yet I suffer from having not dealt much with the stuff in the
interim.

Having said that, are there any books or non-obvious online resources
that you would recommend regarding Postfix, especially something that
covers SMTP MTAs in general?

- Jeff

On Fri, 2003-01-31 at 09:26, Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 04:29:09PM -0500, cfowler wrote:
> > You can allways roll your code.  Sendmail is a nice easy protocol.  But
> > it would be easier to fix your problems.  Sometimes realy must be turned
> > on so you can use the sendmail server as a relay host for your subnet. 
> > That may fix your problem.
> 
> 	I don't think so.
> 
> 	1) Sendmail is an application not a protocol.
> 
> 	2) SMTP is the protocol.
> 
> 	3) SMTP is a simple protcol that's really difficult to get right.
> 
> 	4) Mail handling goes WAY beyond merely handling SMTP.
> 		Header munching
> 		Aliasing (easy to make mistakes)
> 		Forwarding
> 		Mail delivery (even if you do use procmail)
> 		Domain handling (looks simple, hard to get right)
> 		etc, etc, etc...
> 
> 	5) If it was easy, why are all of the MTAs out there such monsters.
> 		Even SMail, which started out small and simple, is now
> 		pretty damn large and complex.
> 
> 	I would never recommend ANYBODY attempt to roll their own code
> for SMTP.  Just read the Postfix mailing list a while for a good clear
> view of why SMTP and mail handling is anything but simple.
> 
> 	I've been a code contributor to several MTAs, including writing an
> SMTP daemon for SMail 2.x and contributing code to SMail 3.x (the two
> were NOT related - different packages) a long time ago.  It ain't simple...
> 
> 	BTW...  My first choice for selecting an alternative to sendmail
> would be Postfix.  Wietse and company have done a great job on it.  It's
> suppose to be a drop in replacement for sendmail and it pretty much is.
> Very stable, very robust.
> 
> > Sendmail is a beast which I do not even bother to try to understand. 
> > But look at the sendmail FAQ and read an O'Reilly book on the topic.
> 
> 	:
> 
> 	Mike
> -- 
>  Michael H. Warfield    |  (770) 985-6132   |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
>   /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/       |  (678) 463-0932   |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
>   NIC whois:  MHW9      |  An optimist believes we live in the best of all
>  PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471    |  possible worlds.  A pessimist is sure of it!


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