[ale] alterntive to sendmail

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 04:29:09PM -0500, cfowler wrote:
> You can allways roll your code.  Sendmail is a nice easy protocol.  But
> it would be easier to fix your problems.  Sometimes realy must be turned
> on so you can use the sendmail server as a relay host for your subnet. 
> That may fix your problem.

	I don't think so.

	1) Sendmail is an application not a protocol.

	2) SMTP is the protocol.

	3) SMTP is a simple protcol that's really difficult to get right.

	4) Mail handling goes WAY beyond merely handling SMTP.
		Header munching
		Aliasing (easy to make mistakes)
		Forwarding
		Mail delivery (even if you do use procmail)
		Domain handling (looks simple, hard to get right)
		etc, etc, etc...

	5) If it was easy, why are all of the MTAs out there such monsters.
		Even SMail, which started out small and simple, is now
		pretty damn large and complex.

	I would never recommend ANYBODY attempt to roll their own code
for SMTP.  Just read the Postfix mailing list a while for a good clear
view of why SMTP and mail handling is anything but simple.

	I've been a code contributor to several MTAs, including writing an
SMTP daemon for SMail 2.x and contributing code to SMail 3.x (the two
were NOT related - different packages) a long time ago.  It ain't simple...

	BTW...  My first choice for selecting an alternative to sendmail
would be Postfix.  Wietse and company have done a great job on it.  It's
suppose to be a drop in replacement for sendmail and it pretty much is.
Very stable, very robust.

> Sendmail is a beast which I do not even bother to try to understand. 
> But look at the sendmail FAQ and read an O'Reilly book on the topic.

	:

	Mike
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