nmh-workers
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [Nmh-workers] mts.conf has me Baffled.

2015-07-23 10:40:53
Thus said Ken Hornstein on Tue, 21 Jul 2015 23:03:12 -0400:

We're moving away from the days  when Unix systems could be counted on
to  have an  appropriate  sendmail or  equivalent  that actually  does
something useful for a home user.

Running a MTA just isn't as glamourous as it once was. :-)

Still, I  find it  more convenient  to have  a properly  configured Unix
system than not.

I hope people don't misunderstand me.  I would describe my position on this
as "nuanced".  To expand a bit more:

- If anyone wants to run a local MTA, then please feel free!  We have no
  plans to remove support for this in nmh; I think we're all on the same
  page here.

- However ... if you have problems getting your MTA to work, then I
  would humbly suggest that maybe you shouldn't be running a local MTA.
  My feeling is that is clearly an "expert mode" feature when it comes
  to nmh.  To put it another way: it's not really an nmh problem if
  your external MTA doesn't work.

- Many people are apparently under the mistaken impression that nmh cannot
  do authentication or TLS when it comes to mail submission; that's
  false!  That support has existed for a number of years now, and it is
  actively used.  See send(1) for more details; if features are missing
  or things are broken, please let us know!

- Rightly or wrongly, we're long gone from the days where most users
  were on multiuser systems that were centrally managed and set up
  sendmail for you, to a model where you're given a server name,
  username, and password and you're expected to configure your MUA.
  This holds true double for home users, as some ISPs block outbound
  access to port 25 to cut down on spam networks run by zombie PCs;
  you can't run your own MTA in those cases.  If that's all you need,
  then really it is MUCH more straightforward to configure nmh to do
  that rather than fiddle with all of the complicated settings that the
  average MTA has.

So, in summary: if you can handle configuring your own MTA, then go
ahead.  Otherwise, it's probably easier for everyone involved if you
just use the built-in nmh mail submission support.

--Ken

_______________________________________________
Nmh-workers mailing list
Nmh-workers(_at_)nongnu(_dot_)org
https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>