send e-mail without use sendmail

[Les Mikesell]

Dario Lesca wrote:
> I'm looking for a line command utility (MTA) which send an email direct
> to a SMTP external server.
> 
> if I use: "echo bye|mutt -s bye user at dom.it"
> 
> the message is send to local sendmail, then sendmail send it to mx
> record dom.it, but dom.it refuse me for security and anti-spam reason.
> 
> I'm looking for a command which send my message direct to my provider,
> like evolution or Thunderbird do.

You don't need to stop using sendmail for that, just configure it to do 
what you want.  Edit /etc/mail/sendmail.mc where it says:

dnl # Uncomment and edit the following line if your outgoing mail needs to
dnl # be sent out through an external mail server:
dnl #
dnl define(`SMART_HOST', `smtp.your.provider')dnl

Remove the leading dnl on that last line and replace smtp.your.provider 
with the mail relay info from your provider. You may or may not want to 
put []'s around the name (inside the `'s).  Without them, an mx lookup 
will be done, with them the A record will be used or you can use a 
literal IP address.

Then do a 'service sendmail restart' to make it pick up the change.
Using sendmail will let your system queue and retry if an immediate 
connection can't be established.  If you use a direct smtp utility the 
send will just fail if the first try doesn't work.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com