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Date:      Sun, 24 Nov 1996 17:06:19 -0800
From:      Jason Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>
To:        Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
Cc:        peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva), jkh@time.cdrom.com, hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Replacing sendmail (Re: non-root users binding to ports < 1024 (was: Re: BoS: Exploit for sendmail smtpd bug (ver. 8.7-8.8.2 
Message-ID:  <199611250106.RAA22845@lestat.nas.nasa.gov>

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On Mon, 25 Nov 1996 10:36:57 +1030 (CST) 
 Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au> wrote:

 > "Sendmail is the de-facto Unix standard mail delivery agent.  Is is
 >  continually subjected to rigorous security scrutiny and frequently
 >  updated.  It provides advanced mail-handling features, and any
 >  unix system administrator will feel immediately at home with it.
 >  Qmail is an obscure mail delivery agent that is claimed to be
 >  secure.  Nobody much uses it, and it is not scrutinised in anything
 >  like as much detail.  If you have problems with it, you're likely
 >  to have trouble finding competent local support.  Which foot would
 >  you like to shoot?"

Oh, well, there's smail and mmdf, too... don't forget those... :-)

So, for the record, JT Conklin and I made the decision to switch
mail.netbsd.org to qmail... Not only is the qmail developers 
list very responsive to problems, but the documentation is so good
that you probably won't _need_ to ask any questions.  We learned qmail
in a few days, and have been quite happy with the performance of
our mail server as a result.

 > Sure, Qmail may well be the best thing since sliced bread.  But making it
 > the standard FreeBSD mail utility will achieve two things :

So, JT and I also discussed putting qmail in the NetBSD source tree, and
making it optional.  We haven't done anything about that yet, but it's
still a possibility...

 >  - expose a pile of security holes that the Qmail developer(s) never
 >    thought existed.
 >  - make FreeBSD the laughing stock of the unix community.

Nah... have them both, and let the user choose in /etc/make.conf.
Qmail is tiny.

Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                               Home: 408.866.1912
NAS: M/S 258-6                                          Work: 415.604.0935
Moffett Field, CA 94035                                Pager: 415.428.6939



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