Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.os.linux.misc > #81680

Re: Help with sendmail ?

Show all headers | View raw

On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 21:22:20 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>> Maybe not what you want to hear, but perhaps this is a good time to give
>>> up on Sendmail, and switch to a more rationally-designed MTA.
 
On 01/02/2026 03:02, rbowman wrote:
>> My memory of sendmail is it filled one of the thicker O'Reilly books all
>> by itself.

On 2026-02-01, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Indeed. And I owned it.
> In the end it got so complicated that I rewrote sendmail.cf from scratch.
> Got it down to about a page.
>
> All configuration went in half a dozen text files.
> That was before encryption and authentication, though.

Indeed, the cruft was in the retention of support for long obsolete 
features such as UUCP mail and address source-routing.

And as sendmail.cf became entirely too unwieldy, they "solved" it
my adding a completely different "high-level" configuration language
in the form of M4 with option names that were similar to the ones
in sendmail itself, but spelled slightly differently.
I never got the hang of writing in sendmail.mc, preferring to hand
edit sendmail.cf, but only in areas where I needed to (which
were very rarely needed and confined to a single line at a time.

So when I needed to look more closely, I now had to explore the M4
and rebuild the CF file.

Postfix also has a lot of possible configuration, but it was
surprisingly easy to get a basic configuration up and running.

At this point, I would suggest that anyone still running sendmail
on a workstation take the tie to bring up postfix at a time when things
are working well, so that the challenge of learning postfix is not
layered on to of time-critical debugging when something fails.

-- 
Lars Poulsen - an old geek in Santa Barbara, California

Back to comp.os.linux.misc | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar

Thread

Help with sendmail ? Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> - 2026-01-31 21:03 +0000
  Re: Help with sendmail ? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-01-31 21:22 +0000
    Re: Help with sendmail ? rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-02-01 03:02 +0000
      Re: Help with sendmail ? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-02-01 10:58 +0000
        Re: Help with sendmail ? Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> - 2026-02-01 15:22 +0000
          Re: Help with sendmail ? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-02-01 20:12 +0000
          Re: Help with sendmail ? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-02-01 20:43 +0000
          Re: Help with sendmail ? Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> - 2026-02-02 10:39 +0100
            Re: Help with sendmail ? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-02-02 21:29 +0000
  Re: Help with sendmail ? "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-01-31 23:10 +0100
    Re: Help with sendmail ? Resolved! Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> - 2026-02-01 01:03 +0000
      Re: Help with sendmail ? Resolved! Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-02-01 02:27 +0000
      Re: Help with sendmail ? Resolved! c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-02-01 00:34 -0500
  Re: Help with sendmail ? Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> - 2026-02-01 10:53 +0100

csiph-web