From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 28 01:43:46 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CF504106568F for ; Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:43:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nomadlogic@gmail.com) Received: from mail-gx0-f218.google.com (mail-gx0-f218.google.com [209.85.217.218]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 589EF8FC18 for ; Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:43:45 +0000 (UTC) Received: by gxk10 with SMTP id 10so299224gxk.3 for ; Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:43:45 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=DOLwGHsthSndF8PB4FZJMyXJHYU6hr3zPDdqdjmhDqE=; b=uppgOsfnYZDC+JPZzIKghOzNmR9nqbfyG6f1B/osxPKJgY3aLQgrzXcTr+owlqFOXH Y5z7uet08n5NOVUx3L8uMn+6QW2He166FPhqPXD+yCV2dh5neNHcWBCHd3amLVs+fSuu 5+1W5yFWjgkgcAzAh3E1h71Br9mSH8WdyfJIs= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=HP754Ty3WAj7rpgtmqSnYfHjIiqGNdWtN+BZgqMrJGa2HJJPmQK/H7JWhMY/I7ItrS xR/ZTwDzkmLyp/UpWr9GVZrQJK+OWYuDMZk50kZSUQel23TTCWYPsDb3wOVJSx5gkf/s ICURxMKk2i3h6gTpK354NGbiz92NT5FqdKayQ= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.151.92.8 with SMTP id u8mr13304502ybl.101.1256694224924; Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:43:44 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20091027202430.X92294@qroenaqrq.6qbyyneqvnyhc.pbz> References: <4AE5F897.3000103@rawbw.com> <200910270916.31033.j.mckeown@ru.ac.za> <20091027021723.M88213@qroenaqrq.6qbyyneqvnyhc.pbz> <20091027142502.Q91143@qroenaqrq.6qbyyneqvnyhc.pbz> <20091027191626.T92033@qroenaqrq.6qbyyneqvnyhc.pbz> <57d710000910271741p7429d4feh150ecbe6cddd3d2e@mail.gmail.com> <20091027202430.X92294@qroenaqrq.6qbyyneqvnyhc.pbz> Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:43:44 -0700 Message-ID: <57d710000910271843p53a05152vfb20ffce418bc604@mail.gmail.com> From: pete wright To: Lars Eighner Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Cc: Jonathan McKeown , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, utisoft@gmail.com Subject: Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:43:47 -0000 On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 6:24 PM, Lars Eighner wrote: > On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, pete wright wrote: > >> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 5:16 PM, Lars Eighner >> wrote: >> >>>> You guessed wrong. >>>> >>>> We use m4, which cuts out most of the crap that you had to write into >>>> sendmail.cf. You write sendmail.mc and compile it. Sendmail.mc on my >>>> system is less than 50 lines long, including comments. >>>> >>>> http://www.sendmail.org/m4/intro.html >>> >>> That's as poorly documented and incomprehensible as .cf by hand. =A0Wha= t is >>> your interest in sendmail? =A0Are you connected with it in someway? >>> =A0Surely, >>> yours could not be the opinion of someone who doesn't get a piece of >>> O'Reilly's royalties. =A0It's the same old crap, give the software away= , >>> sell >>> the documentation. > >> well shit man - Eric's actually a super nice guy and has made some >> major contributions to computing so I reckon he deserves *some* >> respect for the work he's done on sendmail. > > Evidently by making it necessary to learn yet another scripting language > to configure it. =A0Other than personal profit I cannot see why people ar= e > clinging like grim death to something this fubar. =A0Really, let's go pas= t > this one more time: > ok i'm just gonna suggest you read up on the history of sendmail to gain some perspective on why/when it was written. i'm not saying that there are no issues with it - but i think some historical perspective would do you a world of good. regarding having to learn a new language i'm not sure about that as i wouldn't say i "know" m4 - but I can rtfm, and the default .mc files are actually well documented. so yea... > "Sure, sendmail.cf is hard to work with so the solution is you learn m4!" > > Did you look at the link he offered? =A0How helpful is that? > > Beside which, m4 is a PORT. =A0So if sendmail is not configurable without= a > port, why isn't it a port? sure it's a port, sendmail is a port too. but that does not mean you need to install the port to compile custom .mc files for your server. in fact if you check out /etc/mail/Makefile you might notice that m4 is actually part of the base system: /usr/bin/m4 anywho i should stop feeding the troll. -p --=20 pete wright www.nycbug.org