Sendmail / Email copy

[Robert Boucneau]

>Ok, it would work, but I do not call that clean or straight :)
>
>Alexander

Hi Alexander, 

Perhaps. :)   

On the other hand, the user seemed to be frustrated or confused with the multiple configuration files and presented an outbound configuration that will likely change (perhaps even frequently.)  It was my thought that since making a change to the procmail recipe creates an instantaneous change in the functionality of the mailer it was something to at least consider.

And it is something that IMHO is easier to comprehend for the new-to-sendmail or new-to-Linux user. 

While the aliases solution is (as you say) more efficient, in systems that are not disk-bound or processor-bound, invoking procmail and another instance of sendmail creates little overhead...and there are obviously more efficient procmail recipes that would work (like combining destination addresses into a single invocation of sendmail.)  It is my impression that in this instance the address will not receive a large amount of mail...  The recipe I proposed can (I think) be read, and probably understood well enough to change for their specific situation, by anybody that can manage to configure a Linux system in the first place.  I'm not so sure about the modification to aliases ... not even counting that the first aliases solution presented resulted in a loop condition that sendmail has to navigate out of.

I freely admit that my option is *not* the most efficient or most technically "correct" solution.  But, as you agreed, it will work.

As for efficiency, I have one of my email systems running on a 400Mhz Celeron using procmail/sendmail (in a special case) for 30,000+ messages a day.  It averages an 18% processor load and roughly 50% on RAM (with only 128MB installed (RH 7.3~.)

"Clean and straight" are in the eye of the beholder.  If it is easy to understand, easy to maintain in six months for someone who is not a sendmail guru, transportable from configuration to configuration, efficient enough, and works every time, then I am okay with it.

I respect your disagreement, though.  If I were doing what Adam is doing on one of my servers, I would probably use the aliases method (though I'd do it using the ":include: list" syntax and lots of comments for future maintainers.)

Bob