From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1O4amm-0003OX-L8 for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:20:17 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 11BA3E0933; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:19:43 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C98ADE0933 for ; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:19:42 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6875E1B4040 for ; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:19:42 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at gentoo.org X-Spam-Score: -0.661 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.661 required=5.5 tests=[AWL=-0.129, BAYES_00=-2.599, RCVD_NUMERIC_HELO=2.067] Received: from smtp.gentoo.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.gentoo.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id q-9rNKDTynDv for ; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:19:34 +0000 (UTC) Received: from lo.gmane.org (lo.gmane.org [80.91.229.12]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 583C31B4078 for ; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:19:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1O4alw-0004un-Ln for gentoo-user@gentoo.org; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:19:24 +0200 Received: from 64.122.56.22 ([64.122.56.22]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:19:24 +0200 Received: from grant.b.edwards by 64.122.56.22 with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:19:24 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org connect(): No such file or directory From: Grant Edwards Subject: [gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Setting up a fall back ISP SMTP in sendmail Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:19:16 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: References: <201004192251.11426.michaelkintzios@gmail.com> <878w8is01u.fsf@newsguy.com> <201004211218.57483.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.122.56.22 User-Agent: slrn/pre0.9.9-102 (Linux) X-Archives-Salt: 5f9902e4-864a-4e26-bcd8-3898009d031a X-Archives-Hash: afb346f3bb58323afba301ce931ff0d7 On 2010-04-21, Alan McKinnon wrote: > On Tuesday 20 April 2010 15:53:01 Harry Putnam wrote: >> I think you all are missing something... sendmail is better documented >> than any of the other pretenders. > > One has to understand what the various MTAs out there were built to do, and > what their "feature list" is: > > sendmail comes from ancient days. It was written to be able to route almost > any kind of mail using almost any kind of addressing scheme to and from almost > any kind of network. Very true. And since nobody (that I know of) needs that capability any longer, asking modern Linux users to continue to pay for that capability everytime they try to tweak the MTA configuration seems a tad silly. > So it is quite happy receiving SMTP mail from the internet and > routing it to a FidoNet address. To do this, it has to reread it's > routing table with every message, therefore .cf was designed to be > machine efficient but still use only ASCII characters. Which led to > m4 being developed Sendmail didn't lead to m4 being developed. m4 was developed by K&R in the mid 70's. Sendmail didn't happen until the early 80's. According to Wikipedia, sendmail first shipped with BSD 4.1c in 1983. Unless in this context, m4 doesn't refer to the m4 macro processor and associated language? I always thought that the m4 used to encrypt sendmail configurations was the standard Unix m4 that was developed for Ratfor in the 70's. Wikipedia seems to confirm that, saying that "The implementation of Rational Fortran used m4 as its macro engine from the beginning", but Wikipedia also says that m4 was developed in 77 and Ratfor in 74. Both were developed by K&R, so I suppose it could be that m4 was used by Ratfor for a couple years before m4 went public as a seperate program. > Even a cursory glance at sendmail shows that it was designed in a > time with a different mindset and different needs to what we do these > days. Sendmail will never escape this legacy because it is what it is > and that is it's purpose. > > It's not as bad as buggy whips, but the same principle is at work. The UHH chapter on sendmail has some great examples of sendmail address parsing/transformation run amok. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! My polyvinyl cowboy at wallet was made in Hong gmail.com Kong by Montgomery Clift!