postfix aliases file (in light of setup, sendmail, and exim)

[Matthew Miller]

On Wed, Apr 21, 2004 at 11:44:31PM -0400, Tom Diehl wrote:
> > completely getting dropped on the floor (postfix doesn't like to deliver
> > mail to root directly, for security). But the postfix file also seems to
> > be missing a whole host of "standard" aliases that are defined in the
> > /etc/aliases version.
> Whose standard?

Errr, "Fedora standard", I guess. They're largely the names of various
daemon programs.


> Postfic CANNOT deliver mail to root. As is stated in the installation
> instructions you should point it to a real person. As far as what is in it

Yes. As I just said in the portion you quoted above.


> that is totally up to you. Personally I make 1 change and 1 change only to
> that file. That change is to point the root mail to a real person. Any other
> aliases I need are put in a local.aliases file. Simply add that entry to
> your main.cf and all will be well. By default /etc/aliases does not exist
> with postfix. Unless you configure it otherwise it will look for 
> /etc/postfix/aliases.

Right. That's what I'm addressing.


> > Should the postfix aliases file be merged with the main one (and removed
> > from the postfix package)? I'm inclined to think so.
> Why would you do that? Just because someone that packaged sendmail thinks
> they are useful does not mean everyone needs them. Add the ones you need
> and forget about the rest.

The aliases file is no longer part of the sendmail package. It is part of
setup, along with /etc/services, /etc/shells, /etc/passwd, and so on. The
passwd file is a good analogy -- it's got a bunch of Fedora-standard
usernames already in place. One could argue that just because someone (Red
Hat) put them there doesn't need everyone needs them -- but it's _very_
useful to have a consistent default config.

Do what you like locally, but the default behavior should be as transparent
as possible no matter what MTA you select.

Likewise, the default accounts should be there by default whether I choose
to use system-config-users or shadow-utils's useradd. :)


> > Perhaps the issue of "what to do with root's mail" could be solved with
> > :an include: for the MTA-specific entries?
> 
> What is the issue? Send it to a real person of your choice. Postfix has
> never had the ability to run suid root. As a result it has never been able
> to deliver mail to root. It appears to me you have worked with sendmail
> for way too long. :-)

You're misunderstanding. The issue is: how to use a _shared_ aliases file
when postfix has "special needs". I've actually used postfix for about five
years, by the way. And, I think what postfix does is right for sendmail and
exim in the long term too -- but there needs to be a clean path from here to
there.


-- 
Matthew Miller           mattdm at mattdm.org        <http://www.mattdm.org/>
Boston University Linux      ------>                <http://linux.bu.edu/>