Newsgroups: comp.sys.3b1
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!hybrid!chance!john
From: john@chance.UUCP (John R. MacMillan)
Subject: Re: Silent mail handler
Message-ID: <1991Apr2.151024.19209@chance.UUCP>
Organization: Haphazard
References: <1991Mar27.032027.10327@blilly.UUCP> <1991Mar28.150925.703@chance.UUCP> <1991Mar29.105053.20573@blilly.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1991 15:10:24 GMT
Lines: 37

|Depending on "attributes", I've seen smail 3.1 turn a perfectly fine
|(envelope address) "foo%bar@fribble.com" (the names have been changed
|to protect the innocent) into garbage like "fribble.com!foo%bar".

Any MTA that's misconfigured can munge addresses.  Smail was designed
specifically to be easier to configure than sendmail, and having used
both, I simply think they succeeded.

|This has happened recently, and of course people started pointing fingers
|at sendmail, saying things like "sendmail is munging addresses". Well, the
|problem was clearly demonstrated to be an smail problem -- sendmail was
|and is working just fine.

Don't you suppose there was a reason that everyone was quick to blame
sendmail?

|I've never found it necessary to use "ease". And sendmail with IDA
|enhancements has separate rewriting rules for headers and envelope, so
|it's trivial to *entirely avoid* rewriting headers.

I'm glad you have it figured out, but obviously plenty of people
don't, or there never would have been a need for ease, and sendmail
would not have achieved its near-legendary notoriety (although some of
the bugs in earlier versions certainly helped with that).

Sounds like the IDA enhancements certainly would help.

|There's no "trick" to configuring sendmail -- simply (1) read TFM and the
|applicable RFC's

Also sounds like TFM has improved, because what the vendor-supplied
version I had to use came with was next to useless.

I don't want this to degenerate into an MTA flamefest, so this is it
for me on the subject.  Closing arguments:  I've used smail, MMDF, and
sendmail, as well as looked over or worked on the code for all three,
and IMHO, sendmail is the most difficult to configure.