How to SMTP (Email) Server Fedora 6?

[Les Mikesell]

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