Reasons behind defaulting atd and sendmail

[Mike Cronenworth]

-------- Original Message  --------
Subject: Re: Reasons behind defaulting atd and sendmail
From: Chris Tyler <chris at tylers.info>
To: Community assistance, encouragement, and advice for using Fedora. 
<fedora-list at redhat.com>
Date: 09/05/2008 08:04 AM

> On Fri, 2008-09-05 at 01:21 -0500, Michael Cronenworth wrote:
> I've never heard "default" defined as desktop before. Why do you equate
> the two? (To me, the default is a solid base that needs a (small) bit of
> package selection to make an optimal server or desktop -- but I also
> think that the PC paradigm has us thinking too hard in terms of 'server'
> and 'client' and that there are lots of use cases that are
> combinations).

By default no servers are installed. Not apache, not named, not dhcpd, 
not even an FTP server. Sendmail is the only "server-class" daemon that 
is installed by default. I'm not asking for sendmail's removal from 
installation but simply not enabling it at boot time.

> I like being able to assume basic outbound MTA functionality is present,
> so imho having sendmail there by default is a Good Thing. (But yeah, no
> one reads root's mail. Maybe firstboot should give the option -- enabled
> by default -- to redirect root's mail to the first user created (or
> another address of the user's choice) via /etc/aliases).

Outbound MTAs on a local user's system are essentially useless in 
today's Internet. All major e-mail domains have spam filters 
specifically blocking dynamic IPs and most Fedora users have dynamic IP 
addresses, or in some non-US countries proxy IP addresses, even worse. 
The solution would be to configure sendmail to relay through your ISPs 
mail server, but who is going to do that. No one.

> I didn't realize we're not running a combined crond/atd until your
> message prompted me to check! I wonder why...

I'm walking my way up the food chain with this question, so maybe we'll 
find an answer soon.

Mike