Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!seismo!hao!woods From: woods@hao.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: In defense of sendmail Message-ID: <502@hao.UCAR.EDU> Date: Fri, 23-Jan-87 19:49:51 EST Article-I.D.: hao.502 Posted: Fri Jan 23 19:49:51 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 24-Jan-87 06:46:44 EST References: <1137@ndmce.uucp> <16890@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO Lines: 69 Summary: flexible, powerful, and very difficult to use correctly In article <16890@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> jordan@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Jordan Hayes) writes: >Well, I think it's time once again to quell these nasties flying around >about what sendmail is and isn't; what it can do and what it can't. Good idea. It certainly does have advantages and disadvantages, and there are certain sites, like ours, that could not deliver all the mail we are expected to handle without it. However, there are some problems with it. >Notice the attack on "sendmail" rather than "novice sendmail >maintainer" ...? I must take issue with this and agree with Terry. Sendmail is next to IMPOSSIBLE to understand other than by using brute force trial and error if you have anything other than a trivial LAN setup. This MAKES 99% of the site admins using it into "novice sendmail maintainers". It takes MONTHS of playing with it to understand how the cf file really works. After nearly a year, I have FINALLY gotten it to deliver all the mail without creating infinite bouncing loops when a user types an address incorrectly. >There's no reason if you have a reasonable network >situation that you can't find a cf file to suit your needs. Bull. No one *I* know about has a "reasonable network situation" by this definition. Oh, sure, I have found most of the rewriting rules I need in various sendmail.cf files that ARE available, but NOWHERE is there any documentation on how to merge them into ONE file that I can use on each of my particular machines, NONE of which has exactly identical network connections. Even trying to use "ease", a cf file compiler, I have never been able to generate a sendmail.cf file that really works without ANY manual mods on my part. I gave up on it, because dealing with "ease" PLUS the manual mods needed after that was as much of a pain as making all the mods myself. And "ease" is not even an official part of sendmail. To be fair, the authors do mention in the sendmail writeup that the cf file was designed for easy parsing and not for easy reading and that there really ought to be a cf-file compiler, which means they are aware of some of the problems, but right now there ISN'T a cf compiler, and it is VERY difficult to generate a cf file that does what you need it to if you have anything beyond a single fully-connected LAN with one uucp host. >"I hear" ... hmmm ... the From: line is directly managed with the >configuration file ... you "heard" wrong. The major problems people >run into with sendmail deal with their undertstanding of which rulesets >get called where, and what to do about being a gateway site. On this one I have to agree with Jordan. Seldom is there any need to change the header definitions, and those sites which have chosen to do so are fully responsible for the consequences. Even in the messy setup (4 distinct LAN's and a uucp host) that we have here, I have never found a reason to mess with the header definitions. Of course, all machines on all our LAN's are the same domain, and so it looks like one big LAN to the outside world (which is exactly what I want). >There are plenty of people out there who simply cannot (and due to >their network connections, shouldn't) stop running a complicated >mailer. Agreed. We are one of them. Despite my complaints, I certainly wouldn't want to give up sendmail, because there just isn't anything else that works. We also run smail, for routing uucp messages and eliminating the need for our users to type the long paths, but that is merely a convenience; sendmail is a necessity. --Greg -- UUCP: {hplabs, seismo, nbires, noao}!hao!woods CSNET: woods@ncar.csnet ARPA: woods%ncar@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA INTERNET: woods@hao.ucar.edu