How to SMTP (Email) Server Fedora 6?
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
Mon Feb 12 20:01:38 UTC 2007
Alan wrote:
>> Yet, those same versions shipped named and ssh daemons that were just as
>> insecure (perhaps more so) and had no similar network restriction applied.
>
> No. That was still the era when you had to get cryptographic applications
> from Finland if my memory is good, and certainly they had a few ssh
> problems but nothing like sendmail back then.
That might have been the theory. In practice I had machines exploited
via named and ssh holes at least through the RH 6.x era - maybe as late
as early 7.x. I'm pretty sure they came from the base install.
> named wasn't default install for a desktop (you don't need it on a
> desktop), sendmail is needed because you need an internal mailing system
> of some format.
Desktop? People were using RH for servers then. Unless vi or emacs was
your favorite editor, there wasn't a lot you would want on your desktop
and even if there had been, you had to run that mailer somewhere...
>> For some unusual definition of rational, I suppose. Rational decisions
>> would apply to all similar network packages. There is clearly some
>> prejudice involved here.
>
> Mind the little man under your bed, he's out to get you ;)
You can have your idea of equal treatment, I'll keep mine. The programs
that have actually been exploited on my machines had no such
discrimination. And since I needed a working mailer (doesn't everyone?)
it wasn't particularly in my interest to supply one that didn't work.
>> non-default RPM, no GUI tool, and not much documentation pretty much
>> forever, the argument that 'sendmail should be replaced because it is
>> complicated' is just self-fullfilling. Half a dozen examples of
>> sendmail.mc and a 'pick one' approach would cover the vast majority of
>
> The .mc stuff exists because sendmail is complicated, and the fact there
> isn't a one liner change in a trivial human readable config file is
> because we kept sendmail rather than switching to exim because quite a
> few Red Hat folks even back then during the sendmail hole of the week era
> decided that users expected sendmail and it was the "normal" choice.
The .mc stuff exists because sendmail has a complete programming
language for its low level configuration and not everyone is a
programmer experienced in in that language. Yes, keeping sendmail was
sensible. Not providing a working configuration was not, and not
building a GUI for the commonly required changes was even less sensible.
Now you have a user base that knows nothing about email even though it
is less than a one-line change in sendmail.mc to make it work the way
you would expect on a unix-like system. And they think sendmail doesn't
work, simply because the RH/fedora configuration doesn't work as shipped.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
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