Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ra!Ra.MsState.Edu!fwp1 From: fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters) Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail Subject: Re: Sendmail and NFS Message-ID: Date: 17 Dec 90 06:54:03 GMT References: <1990Dec12.233139.6810@starnet.uucp> <4386@alliant.Alliant.COM> <1990Dec15.203420.25181@starnet.uucp> <1990Dec16.174928.2908@mp.cs.niu.edu> Sender: usenet@ra.MsState.Edu Distribution: na Organization: Computing Center, Mississippi State University Lines: 59 Nntp-Posting-Host: jester.cc.msstate.edu In-reply-to: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu's message of 16 Dec 90 17:49:28 GMT In article <1990Dec16.174928.2908@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes: > * Users should be able to send mail within the local network > without knowing which anything about which machine each user > lives on. Alias files seem to solve this nicely. > > * Notification: Users should be informed as soon as possible > after mail arrives for them even if they are not logged into > their "home" machine. > > * Distributed access: Users should be able to read their mail > from whatever machine they happen to be logged into, rather than > having to log into their "home" machine to read mail. > > * Centralized administration: Ideally, it should be possible to > add users from a single machine. > >It may be that Sendmail is not capable of providing the functionality I >want in a heterogeneous environment. Still, I want to get as much of >this agenda implemented as possible. > You are asking too much of sendmail to expect it to do all of this. Which is not to say you cannot HAVE all of this. Point four isn't really a mail issue at all. It deals with things like yp or some other distributed userid scheme. We have mail NFS mounted on several machines of diverse type (suns, sgis, mac/aux and probably a few others). Mail from each machine is passed to the central mail hub for delivery...even if it is an address that appears to be local. All outgoing mail has the same hostname stuck on it. This means that all replies are directed to the mail hub. If mail is mistakenly addressed to user@someclient.my.domain and the MX record for that client is ignored then the client accepts the mail and turns around and sends it on to the hub. It means that a user can send mail to his friend joe with the simple userid and ignore the fact that the mail is never delivered locally and that joe is reading mail on another client machine. And the aliases file doesn't enter into the picture. Since the mail spool is NFS shared a user can read his mail on any system. And bif notifies of new mail on any system. The only mail updates the client does are mail reading. We were concerned about file locking between heterogenious systems but so far we've seen no sign of problem from this. One advantage to the central mail hub approach is that the sendmail.cf files on client machines can be extremely simple and stagnant. All modifications and real intelligence are centralized in the hub's configuration. One disadvantage is that you put a bit more load on the hub machine and pass some extra bits about. FWP -- -- Frank Peters Internet: fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu Bitnet: FWP1@MsState Phone: (601)325-2942 FAX: (601)325-8921