spf-discuss
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RE: [spf-discuss] solving the forwarding problem

2005-09-15 10:41:48

-----Original Message-----
From: Dick St.Peters [mailto:stpeters(_at_)NetHeaven(_dot_)com]
Sent: donderdag 15 september 2005 19:02
To: spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com
Subject: RE: [spf-discuss] solving the forwarding problem


From: Dick St.Peters [mailto:stpeters(_at_)NetHeaven(_dot_)com]

That "entire" alias db is rebuilt by sendmail every time
it starts up anyway.

I surely hope not. :)

Actually, the behavior is determined by:

    O AutoRebuildAliases=bool          configuration file
    define(`confAUTO_REBUILD',bool)    m4 configuration

Actually, we're both wrong. I had forgotten that on my systems the
alias database is rebuilt on sendmail daemon startup by
/etc/init.d/sendmail, not by sendmail itself.

As for the AutoRebuildAliases option, quoting from sendmail's
RELEASE_NOTES:

8.12.0/8.12.0   2001/09/08
      ....
      Remove AutoRebuildAliases option, deprecated since 8.10

You are right, the option has gone away. My bad. Glad to hear it, btw. :)

I would say that the one-time presence of an AutoRebuildAliases option
shows that aliases were not intended for only static, stable data.

Conversely, I would say that the removal of same actually shows they saw
the error of their ways, and decided not to let people make dynamic use of
something which was clearly meant to be used statically. :)

More importantly, not long ago having a large number of users meant
having multiple disks disks spread across multiple file servers.
Having a big group of users' mail forwarding fail because their
directories were on a file server that was down was a quick lesson in
why relying on .forward files was what was ill-advised.  It still is
if you have NFS-mounted user directories.

NFS can be problematic in this regard, I agree. I still really prefer
to use .forward files. At one place, where NFS mounted user home dirs
are in place, I rigged our setup as follows:

O ForwardPath=/usr/shadow/$u/.forward

Where /usr/shadow/ exists on the disk sendmail is on. Users set their
forwarding via a web-interface, btw. I just really, really disliked having
to make something that edits and/or rebuilds /etc/mail/aliases. :) Now
the web-interface just edits the .forward files in /usr/shadow/.

None of this has any relevance to SPF though. It matters that a lot
of mail is forwarded. How that is accomplished doesn't matter, only
the envelope addressing does.

True enough.

- Mark 
 
        System Administrator Asarian-host.org
 
---
"If you were supposed to understand it,
we wouldn't call it code." - FedEx

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