Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!daver!dlr From: dlr@daver.bungi.com (Dave Rand) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: How efficient/fast is uucp? Message-ID: <1990Aug27.052302.28750@daver.bungi.com> Date: 27 Aug 90 05:23:02 GMT References: <1990Aug27.021817.26499@daver.bungi.com> Organization: Association for the Prevention of Polar Bears and Kangaroos Lines: 47 In article vixie@decwrl.dec.com (Paul A Vixie) writes: >>> dlr@daver.bungi.com (Dave Rand) writes: >>> Nothing to it. smail3 is simple, configurable, works on nearly >>> all systems, and doesn't have a sendmail.cf file! What more could >>> you want :-) > >I'd quibble over "simple". Some of those files you quoted look pretty >daunting, and I note with terror that there are a lot more of them than >in good 'ol (or is that bad 'ol) sendmail. At most, you have to deal with 4 files: 1. directors, which tells local mail how to get delivered; 2. routers, which tells non-local mail how to get routed; 3. transports, which tells smail how to get mail out of smail; 4. and a methods file, which tells for a given machine name which transport to use to best get the mail there. Of course, the advantages are that smail configuration files are human-readable :-), and ALL ARE OPTIONAL. If you don't have them, smail will default to "sensible" values. Sensible, in this case, means values that make sense based on the configuration options you specified when smail3 was compiled (it won't try for a DNS resolution on a UUCP-only machine, for example). On various machines that I administer, only the externally-visable machine(s) have any of these files. The internal machines generally stick with the compiled-in defaults, yet still offer all of the neato-kean features (thanks to smart-hosting)! > >Anyone know when smail3 is coming out of beta-test, OFFICIALLY ? Who can tell? Source is on uunet now, and I've been running it here for months (years?). Ferget the beta test, and go with it. It works well. Like I've said before - I really like smail3. It makes my job easier, because it does the "right thing" out of the box. I can actually understand how the configuration files work (yeah, I know - people can read sendmail.cf as well, but I'm just not smart enough). For uucp-only sites, it offers many of the advantages of sendmail (.forward files with command pipes, RFC-822, etc), but without the pain. Give it a try; what have you got to lose but a few hours of your time? -- Dave Rand {pyramid|mips|bct|vsi1}!daver!dlr Internet: dlr@daver.bungi.com