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From: jhenders@bogon.com (John Henders)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail,comp.mail.smail,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Sendmail vs. Smail...
Date: 6 Dec 1996 07:30:06 -0800
Organization: Bogon Research
Lines: 45
Message-ID: <589e5u$35t@stdismas.bogon.com>
References: <57tf61$gq7@raven.eva.net> <584aao$5im@rzstud1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> <vusp5k6iy2.fsf@moocow.math.nat.tu-bs.de>
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In <vusp5k6iy2.fsf@moocow.math.nat.tu-bs.de> Mike Dowling <mike@moocow.math.nat.tu-bs.de> writes:
>Well, I've been using smail for years too, and it's not bad, but I would like
>to use sendmail *precisely* because of that flexible sendmail.cf file that
>smail so lacks.
Then why don't you look at exim. It really has the best of both worlds.
Human readably config files, and much more flexibility than smail. How
would you like to be able to deny common spam sites access you your
site by adding them to a simple text file. How about not accepting mail
for relay to 3'rd parties except from hosts or networks you trust. How
about refusing to accept mail unless the sender address is confirmed to
be replyable to (this one really keeps out the spammers, who all use
unreplyable return addresses) These are just a few of the anti-spam
features exim has. Exim also channels all mail to a site down one smtp
connection when possible, which really helps get mail through to sites
with slow mailers that seem to time out on 9 out of 10 connection
attempts. And doing virtual mail hosting with exim is very simple too.
ftp://ftp.cus.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programs/exim/exim-1.58.tar.gz
I've now installed exim on 2 of our production machines, including one
that handles 145,000 messages a day, and it's been solid so far.
>..(I've have yet to get sendmail to function correctly, or,
>rather, I suspect that sendmail is doing it's job as it should, but there is
>some problem with the communication of sendmail and the mail delivery agent.)
>Anyway, if and when sendmail does work on my Linux machine, the first things
>that I shall do is, firstly, get sendmail to bounce spammers, and, secondly,
>disable MIME, neither of which can be done with smail, or, at least, I am not
>aware of any way of doing this with smail. (procmail can, of cource be applied
>to spammers.)
Smail 3.2 allows you to define 8BITMIME, which will prevent you from
getting quoted unreadable messages, and smail has always been 8 bit
clean. The reason 8BITMIME is not on by default is that smail doesn't
have the code to encode 8 bit mail to sites when it sends it, but if
you're not a relay host, you don't need to care.
--
Artificial Intelligence stands no chance against Natural Stupidity.
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