From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 2 13:55:03 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3BEC937B429 for ; Wed, 2 Apr 2003 13:55:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from stork.mail.pas.earthlink.net (stork.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.188]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7CEB943FAF for ; Wed, 2 Apr 2003 13:55:00 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tlambert2@mindspring.com) Received: from pool0303.cvx22-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net ([209.179.199.48] helo=mindspring.com) by stork.mail.pas.earthlink.net with asmtp (SSLv3:RC4-MD5:128) (Exim 3.33 #1) id 190qC9-0000Z1-00; Wed, 02 Apr 2003 13:54:58 -0800 Message-ID: <3E8B5BE5.644EF723@mindspring.com> Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2003 13:53:41 -0800 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Peter Schultz References: <3E8AED1B.10606@jocose.org> <3E8AEFBF.D1D640E3@mindspring.com> <3E8AFB2F.3040701@jocose.org> <3E8B01F2.B3E02FC8@mindspring.com> <3E8B0B9D.6010300@jocose.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-ELNK-Trace: b1a02af9316fbb217a47c185c03b154d40683398e744b8a4de10f470e868703bafba791a3e834110350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Removing Sendmail X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2003 21:55:03 -0000 Peter Schultz wrote: > Terry Lambert wrote: > > If you look over the historical cases of this discussion, > > you'll see that the answer always comes down to "make the > > system more modular, so people can replace XXX with YYY and > > quit bothering us; please send patches". 8-) 8-). > > Thanks for your help on this. I've been getting so many search results > that I've been unable to determine the exact problem myself. So, one > absolute requirement is that the system have both an mta, and an msa. > When you say msa, does this include pop&imap capabilities? MTA: Mail Transfer Agent; used for transferring mail via the SMTP protocol to other platforms over the network; this is where most security vulnerabilities surface, because the port is generally open to public attack, if people fail to use a proxy firewall. MSA: Mail Submission Agent; used for local submission of mail messages, for either later or immediate delivery by an MTA or an MDA. MDA: Mail Delivery Agent; used for delivery of mail that has been submitted via an MSA to a mail transport or to an endpoint; an MDA that delivers mail to local mailboxes is called a "Local Delivery Agent". MUA: Mail User Agent; used for interacting with an MSA and/or a Message Store; usually an MUA can do both, e.g. the program /usr/bin/mail operates "mbox" formatted message stores located in /var/mail/$USER and ~/mbox by default. MS: Message Store; an MS can be simple filesystem storage, such as a single "mbox" format file (see "MUA", above), or "maildir" format (one file per message), a POP3 or IMAP4 database protected and accessed only via a wire protocol, etc.. The MS is usually directly accessible in some form through direct file manipulation by *some* form of MUA. Minimal requirements for supporting local mail to the root user as a result of security script processing (for example) are an MUA, an MSA, and an MDA. Clear? If you decide your MS is Cyrus IMAP from ports, for example, then you will need to provide an MUA replacement for /bin/mail, minimally for reading mail sent to root, since Cyrus keeps its messages in an internalized database format not understood by /usr/bin/mail. There are other examples where an impedence mismatch is possible, of course, but you specifically mentiond POP3/IMAP4. -- Terry