Repeated connections to port 25 with firewall

[Randy Pratt]

On Wed, 26 May 2004 13:27:07 +0100
Jonathon McKitrick <jcm at FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> wrote:

> : When local processes want to mail, they fork n exec a sendmail binary 
> : themselves.
> : 
> : You shouldn't need a sendmail server running for that.
> 
> Here is what I have/had in rc.conf
> 
> #sendmail_enable="no"
> #sendmail_submit_enable="no"
> #sendmail_outbound_enable="no"
> #sendmail_msp_queue_enable="no"
> 
> And as soon as I restarted after commenting out these lines, root's mailbox
> got filled with megs of mail from cron.  I want the minimum I need to get
> system mail without leaving an instance of sendmail vulnerable to attack or
> eating up resources.

This archive post may help you:

    http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20031220102637.GB6942

Another document that may be of interest is 

    /etc/mail/README

> p.s.  What mail reader is good for root mail?  Is there anything better at
> managing system mail than mutt?

You can use any mail client.  You can also read root's mail as any
user by adding an entry to /etc/aliases, for example:

    # Pretty much everything else in this file points to "root", so
    # you would do well in either reading root's mailbox or forwarding
    # root's email from here.

    # root: me at my.domain
    root: joeuser

All the mail that would have went to root will be forwarded to
"joeuser".

HTH,

Randy

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