Re: We need a new subject- bug fixes

Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:

That is because they use more rational configuration method.
No they don't. Have you built a kernel from scratch that included
everything that fedora includes? Or apache with all the modules built?
It isn't fun - or very rational. However, you don't have to do that if
you install fedora. The point of the packaged distribution is that the
work is already done and maintained.

What does this have to do with configuring a service? You are really
having to struggle to come up with something to justify your
position. That should tell you something.

The point is that those things come preconfigured for typical uses. If we haven't established yet that email isn't very useful unless some machines accept mail over the network, let's do that now to make it clear that is a needed configuration choice.

Maybe
if Sendmail did as well, it could be treated the more like other
services.
Sendmail does give you the opportunity to use a pre-built configuration.
Fedora just doesn't provide one that gives the upstream functionality.

And this relates to how easy it is to change the sendmail
configuration how?

Anything is easy when yum/rpm installs what you need.


This is the key - services with standard specifications. Sendmail is
non-standard when compared to other services.
There are standard specifications for mail behavior. None of the other
programs follow any standards for config files. How you make it do it
doesn't matter.

Oh, now you are saying that having to make a change in sendmail.mc,
and then generate a new sendmail.cf file doesn't matter.

Of course it doesn't matter as long is it is done automatically. A vast number of more complicated things are done automatically as the kernel boots, for example.


If that is
so, then what iis your problem with the current configuration?

The needed sendmail.mc is not provided.


So why should it be
treated like other services. Or are you saying that there should be
a configuration program that directly modifies sendmail.cf?
To put it in line with the way other fedora configurations work,
sendmail.mc should include lines from a directory under /etc/sysconfig
that would control a few common options and allow milters to add
themselves independently. There might be a system-config-sendmail
utility that controlled the settings of those optional lines. Like
other services, users should not need to edit the configs directly
unless they have non-standard environments.

Hmm - there is a file in /etc/sysconfig that controls how Sendmail
starts - this is the same as other daemons have. Or are you saying
that Sendmail should get special treatment here, but not other places?

That's a good start, but look what they do for iptables as a comparison.

To make something like this work, the startup script for Sendmail
check the time stamps on sendmail.cf and /etc/sysconfig/sendmail
and rebuild sendmail.cf before starting sendmail. This would require
everyone that runs Sendmail to install M4 and the Sendmail
configuration package even if they have no need to change the
default configuration.

Yes, that all already happens by virtue of a makefile in /etc/mail, and it's a good thing. Edit sendmail.mc, restart sendmail and you are all set. Oh wait, I left out reading the 900 page bat book for something you shouldn't have had to do.

Now, as far as non-standard environments, needing Sendmail to accept
connections from the Internet is a non-standard environment.

Beg your pardon? Email as we know it can't work unless this happens.

Most
machines are not going to be an Internet mail server. So why should
the default configuration support it? From a security standpoint, it
is better to not accept connections from outside the machine unless
they are needed. This is why services like Apache, POP3, etc are not
turned on by default. Because a local mail server is needed for
proper operation of the system, Sendmail runs by default, but it
runs locked down. This works just fine for most users, and for the
ones it doesn't, there is a lot more configuration then just
enabling it to listen to other interfaces then 127.0.0.1.

For every sender there must be a listener. Should RH/fedora be inadequate for this role?

If you
want a mail program that can be configured like other services, then
you need a mail server that is configured like other services.
No you don't. You need the distribution to handle it the way it does
the gazillion other programs it includes.

And how is that? Be specific. Explain, in detail, how you want
Sendmail to be handled.

There are about 4 common differences people would likely want. The existing send-only version with delivery to the MX recipient is one.
A likely option would be forwarding through a relay host, so an
optional line of
define(`SMART_HOST', `smtp.your.provider')dnl
would make sense with a configuration tool permitting you to supply the relay host the way you configure other network settings.

Another machine might _be_ the relay host. It will need to accept mail over the network, and you'll probably want it to handle roaming users with smtp auth, so you'd want:
define(`confAUTH_OPTIONS', `A p')dnl
TRUST_AUTH_MECH(`EXTERNAL DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN')dnl
define(`confAUH_MECHANISMS', `EXTERNAL GSSAPI DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN')dnl

I don't think those will hurt anything in any case, so they might as well be part of the default - and of course the ssl certificate should be generated automatically as it is for ssh.

If you have roaming users you would probably make your external/relay server also the delivery server and use pop3s/imaps from the internet side to retrieve mail. If you are a little more paranoid and still think all the bad guys are outside your firewall you might have the relay forward to an 'inside' server. In that case your non-delivering relay needs:
define(`MAIL_HUB', `esmtp:your_delivery_host')
again with the ability to specify the name here.

And you probably want to run a milter like MimeDefang on the internet-exposed server, so:
INPUT_MAIL_FILTER(`mimedefang', S=unix:/var/spool/MIMEDefang/mimedefang.sock, F=T, T=S:60s;R:60s;E:5m')

Not vague statements that do not tell us
anything except that you don't the way things are done. Then explain
how Sendmail can be configured this way, considering the way you
have to configure Sendmail.

I'm not a sendmail expert which is why I think someone else should be doing this stuff, but there's what - 3 optional lines there to make it perform all of the usual mail handling roles? Do we really need to read that 900 page book for this? I guess if we get this far it would make sense to add the option to send _to_ a relay with smtp auth as well which would be needed for certain ISPs and might do away with the need to permit any network-based access to your own relay. I don't have an example handy but that's another line or 2.

> After all, you can not configure
> Sendmail by just editing a config file the way you can most other
> packages.

Yes you can, given the makefile that takes care of the rest.


You keep harping that Sendmail should accept incoming mail by
default,
I'm not sure I've ever said exactly that, but you keep saying I said it
for some reason. I'm saying enabling or disabling its access to the
network should be handled the way the distribution handles other programs.

Explain this. Or are you saying that the only thing necessary to
reconfigure Sendmail from a local machine only mail server to a
network mail server is to enable it to listen to other interfaces?

Yes, after doing that it will accept addresses in the form of user@hostname and deliver to the user's local mailbox. If you want it to accept other host/domain names you can add them to another config file that is just a list of names. No need for the book there.

Email would not be useful if someone doesn't accept network connections.
So even if not everyone needs it, clearly some do.

So what? That is about as smart as Microsoft starting a web server
on every server because some people might need it. That is very poor
security.

The poor security didn't come from running "a" web server, it was from running a buggy web server. Do you think every web server has poor security?

If you need it, you turn it on as part of the other
configuration you need to do to turn a stand-alone mail server into
a network mail server.

Listening on a port and being secure are two different concepts. If you need to receive mail, you still need to be just as secure as if you don't. Listening on a port doesn't make your machine insecure. Bugs in the software make it insecure and pushing the problem off on someone else doesn't help fix it.

What you can't seam to grasp
is that your setup will work for maybe 1% of the users.
OK, if those are the ones that are making email work for the rest of the
others, I'd consider them too important to ignore.

But they are not. So that argument falls flat too. The setup you
talk about would work for a stand-alone mail server. A small network
mail server requires more configuration. A large network requires a
lot more. Are you trying to say that someone would use Fedora in a
production environment and be able to use the stock configuration if
it listened to other interfaces? I find that hard to believe.

If it's exposed to the internet you probably want a milter configured for virus and spam scanning. MimeDefang lets you handle that part of the configuration in perl and comes with a good example setting. Other than that, to whatever extent fedora is suitable for server use, a small fedora box can easily handle hundreds of users in either the hub or relay roles with a few changed lines in sendmail.mc. Just add users...

--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx

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