Please read the whole thread.
The essential question is: can a user who doesn't know much just set
up a system with a mailer? My anser is: Not with sendmail. Not
without being a menace to the rest of the internet community, and not
unless they have a lot of free time to learn sendmail. The problem
with that is once you've learned to configure and work around
sendmail, the knowledge you have applies only to sendmail, and not to
any other MTA.
If you are skilled enough, you could write a smtp mailer using COBOL
and netcat on linux. Why bother?
> The Sendmail develpment team releases a superior product, and they
> release it responsibly. Instead of rushing to push 8.9 out the door just
> to appease the people too impatient to read some documentation on how to
> add anti-spam rulesets, they put it through thorough beta testing.
> Remember, Qmail has had its share of vulnerabilities. The only reason
> why Sendmail has had so many more is because it's been around for so many
> years.
I don't consider their history to be responsible, and I feel burned by
sendmail. The "superior" product is (if true) a very recent
occurance. Your opinion, doesn't at all reflect the reality of this
january's bug w/ not accurately recording the receiving IP address if
a buffer of 1k is overflowed in the smtp conversation (essential to
crack down on spam). Nor does it address sendmail's long history of
being unreliable and buggy.
I left sendmail after going through the long, boring, and frustrating
cycle of having to upgrade "production" releases of sendmail about
once per month. Until sendmail 8.8.5 anyone running sendmail and
thinking their system was secure against attacks was sadly deceived.
Anyone installing sendmail prior to 8.9.0 who thought they didn't like
spam is destined to be force fed it sometime soon. There's no reason
that anyone should have to learn about the internet this way, especially
when better options abound.
> > That's too bad. I like a mailer that I can do everything with by
> > reading the sources and the man pages, and not need anything else.
>
> I like a mailer that can do *anything* I want it to, as long as I take
> the time to read how it works. With Sendmail, you have an incredible
> amount of flexibility to change the way it works to an extreme level.
> It's not perfect, but it's the best thing we've got out there as a free
> product.
(note: I don't think you've ever used qmail).
I don't understand why you're splitting hairs here. I can do anything
I want to in qmail - and get security that's been unbeaten since it's
gamma release in mid 1996. There are a great many things that can be
done in qmail. One of the great things about qmail is that by using
and setting up the system, you learn more and more about the OS you're
using, as well as the mailer.
-Peter
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