Why is Sendmail still around?

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 29 Mar 2019 09:41:19 +0100, Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
> Anno domini 2019 Fri, 29 Mar 09:22:32 +0100
>  Andrea Venturoli scripsit:
> > On 3/29/19 2:59 AM, Mayuresh Kathe wrote:
> > > easier to configure for simple tasks than Sendmail.
> > 
> > Just out of curiosity, what do you find so hard in configuring sendmail 
> > *for simple tasks*?
> > (I agree it's somewhat confusing sometimes when it comes to complex 
> > edge-cases).
> 
> Last time I looked at sendmail, it did not deliver local mail
> when no notwork and/or nameserver was available. Testing was
> done on a fresh installation of FreeBSD 10, so maybe things
> have changed. 

Does that system run the /etc/periodic system scripts? If yes,
where does the output go?

The only thing that sendmail requires for delivering local mail
(i. e., from "process user" to "real user" and of course for
"real user" to "real user") is a correct configuration for the
loopback device (see 127.0.0.1 and localhost). So if you have

	127.0.0.1 localhost

in your /etc/hosts, it should be okay. The setting

	sendmail_submit_enable="YES"

in /etc/rc.conf should be sufficient. This makes sure that
the periodic scripts can send messages to root (or any other
user, if additionally specified), as well as "intra-system
communication", such as:

	% mail root
	Subject: A test
	This is a test.
	.
	% _

And into the other direction:

	# mail -s "Test works" bob
	Hey Bob,
	the test was successful.
	.
	# _

This is basic system functionality. ;-)



See /etc/defaults/rc.conf for sendmail-related items.



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...