Why is sendmail bad?

[Kenneth Porter]

--On Thursday, February 24, 2005 2:56 PM -0600 Josh Boyer 
<jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org> wrote:

> Yes, but with exim you don't need to run make.  You just edit the config
> file and you're done.

So typing "make" is hard for someone who's able to use a text editor?

Currently sendmail is launched via a symlink used to enable MTA switching. 
I suppose one could add more indirection and invoke it by a script that 
runs Make first.

> Really?  I disagree.  I hardly know anything about mail servers, yet I
> exim allows me to run spam and virus checking by simply uncommenting one
> line.  And unlike sendmail, I didn't have to explicitly enable outside
> connections.

So should RH ship sendmail's config set to accept incoming connections, or 
close Exim for workstation users who have no business receiving SMTP 
connections? That's a packaging bug, not a usability issue; one of the 
packages is shipped with the wrong setting.

If uncommenting a line to enable inbound connections is "hard" for a newbie 
sendmail user, wouldn't the same action to enable scanning in Exim be just 
as hard?

> Sure, but a user needs to know what a milter entry is right?  And how to
> set it up to do what you need it to do, etc.  I don't have a clue what a
> milter entry is.

milter = mail filter. A sendmail plug-in. It gets called for each step of 
the SMTP conversation. Milters exist for several AV's and spam scanners, 
and MIMEDefang lets you run arbitrary Perl to perform complex matching and 
decisions.