Sendmail and security

[Gordon Messmer]

Anne Wilson wrote:
> A user of another distro has remarked that I should uninstall sendmail.  
> <quote> Sendmail simply has too many security issues to leave it on any 
> machine. </quote>

Depends on the configuration.  On Red Hat and Fedora Core hosts, the 
default configuration for sendmail listens only on the localhost 
interface, and is safe from remote exploits.  Also, as long as you leave 
the targeted SELinux policy enabled, sendmail should be restricted in 
what it can do.

Those things said, I'm not a big fan of sendmail's all-in-one-binary 
architecture, which is the root of its long history of exploits.  I 
wouldn't use it to actually receive mail from the internet.