Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!news.cs.indiana.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!mp.cs.niu.edu!rickert From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) Newsgroups: comp.mail.mh Subject: Re: Problems with whatnow/send Message-ID: <1991Jan26.140602.5459@mp.cs.niu.edu> Date: 26 Jan 91 14:06:02 GMT References: <5740009@hpscdc.scd.hp.com> Organization: Northern Illinois University Lines: 31 In article <5740009@hpscdc.scd.hp.com> schmitz@hpscdc.scd.hp.com (John Schmitz) writes: > Q. What exactly are the benefits of using SMTP with mh? > > A. Well, the primary one I know of is that you don't have to run a > Mail Transport Agent on every host. When you have several hundred > client workstations, it's a major hassle to manage a Sendmail (or > MMDF, etc.) on every one of them. > >It seems to me that unix really relies on being able to use mail. All >sorts of programs have built in calls to mail (vi, cron, etc.) and it >would be difficult to administer systems without having an MTA. >Further, other mailers aren't capable of this feature, so if you want >them to work, you must have a MTA. Or did I miss something? I don't think you missed a thing. I am still waiting for a satisfactory answer to that question. I guess with a network there is some small benefit in MH using the file server and SMTP, thereby saving one mail hop (compared to sending to the local sendmail which will perhaps itself pass it to the server). I didn't find any answer that would be useful to me. I can't benefit from listing multiple SMTP servers for mh, since this will only work if all have exactly the same idea of email addresses, including local addresses without any '@domain'. The inconvenience to users of having to add full domain names to all local addresses would negate any benefits from multiple servers. -- =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science Northern Illinois Univ. DeKalb, IL 60115 +1-815-753-6940