Re: [opensuse] Getting Rid of postfix and exim on my laptop

Carlos E. R. said the following on 10/24/2008 08:59 AM:

On Friday, 2008-10-24 at 08:10 -0400, Anton Aylward wrote:

If you want to make this a security issue then the whole thing of
applications sending out alerts by mail is the security issue.

Why?

If the alerts aren't seen they can't be acted on.


In a enterprise setting this is normally handled by a central syslog
mechanism for the enterprise and there is some very sophisticated
software supporting this.

On some enterprises.

Unhelpful. Can be said about anything, anywhere.


Actually, SNMP is a better method.

I'm not going into that argument, its a pissing contest.
Each method has it place and the large organizations I deal with use
many on the principle of overlapping fields and defence in depth.

In a "user" setting where there isn't the IT support of larger business
the GUI is the thing and as Microsoft has shown and I discuss more fully
elsewhere in this thread an on-screen pop-up makes more sense.

I object to comparisons to M$.

Object all you want. They have some good stuff, have demonstrated some
great ideas and principles and show success. My point here is that they
have overcome the command line legacy and even the annoying "GPF" (or
3.8 LPF if you're in Canada or France) problem. If you can't watch too
see what they do well and do right you can't learn from them. Do you
imagine they are not watching the open source community and learning?
CP/M and Jim Patterson's adoption on which PC-DOS was based didn't have
a hierarchical file system, didn't have "." and "..", didn't have
hidden files ... where do you think Microsoft got all those & much more
from?

And I strongly object to having "alerts" popping up in my desktop. That's
one of the reasons I dislike microsoft.

One of many.
But the point is that if the alerts aren't seen they can't be acted on.

*YOU* might not like them and *I* can configure my laptop any which way
to hell, but *we* have gee blood flowing in our veins, whereas the
average user doesn't.

I see that large number of netbooks are being returned, the ones running
Linux being traded in for ones that run Windows. The average Joe
consumer isn't as geeky as us and can't set up all that mail forwarding,
ldap, nis all the rest. He's been brainwashed, rightly or wrongly, by
Microsoft and for him a pop-up notifier is the right way.

Me, I want to run syslog and have swatch "page me" with a SMS message on
my cell phone when something critical happens. That's me.

YMMV. But to deny the average user a facility just because *you* don't
like Microsoft is, I think, a bit arrogant. Its the sort of elitist
attitude that will marginalize Linux.


You have a point in that postfix or sendmail could be replaced with a
smaller, local delivery only, smtp agent. However, ¿can you actually
sugest such a package? Unless there is one, ready made, available and
reliable, or you can convince some developper to develop it, I'm afraid
the suggestion is useless.

Years ago I ran one up in Perl :-)
I've seen a few since then ... lets google, eh?



You can fill a enhancement request on Bugzilla. If you really want that
feature, that's the only place Novell listens.

Help me here please with an address.

But more to the point while I *can* configure Postfix, the installation
process should configure the mail forwarder.

You do not need to configure it at all. The default configuration
as installed by openSUSE only listens internally. In fact, maybe you do
not need to have the service running.

If there was a local-only delivery agent, yes.
But its not about "only listening locally", its about where its delivered.

To be meaningful, because its not a pop-up and because Joe AverageUser
is running the GUI and not a command line shell, it needs to be
forwarded to his email account. The installation/set-up should do that.
Then when he reads his mail via Thunderbird, Gmail, Hotmail, whatever,
there's his system messages. TaDah!



Personally, I still think that Microsoft have demonstrated with their

I object to comparisons to M$.

See above. If you can't learn from them ...


Having worked in IT & Security at large banks and telcos I can assert
that syslog *is* a primary central monitoring tool in large

I too have worked in telcos, and I have seen mail even in the exchange
software. And yes, I have also worked with syslog type of reporting. But
remember that telcos and banks are old institutions, the new thing is
SNMP.

I recall back in 1989 I met with Marty Shoftstall of PSI in Falls
Church. Marty 'invented" SNMP in 1988 (see RFC 1067, 1089, 1157).
Marty told me two things. The first was that there was no market for
the Internet in Canada, the second was that a SNMP was a mistake. he
spent the next three hours elaborating on both of those. He was wrong
about the first, as I went on to prove, and for whatever shortcomings
SNMP has, and it has a lot, it has been adopted by vendors for the lack
of anything else.

But to say its a "new thing" or even a "new fashion" is incorrect. I
was managing routers and modems at an ISP using SNMP back in 1983/4.

Banks and Telcos my be 'old', but they have some of the most extensive
and varied networks around.

For those that are just running a windowing workstation with no
infrastructure at all, the 'one man SOHO/SMB', a pop-up notifier is a
better alternative.

Again, I object to pop up notifiers. They are a no-no.

That's your decision and being able to make that decision is important.
My point is that we don't ave the ability to make that decision.

I don't like pop-ups either and I'm glad that Firefox blocks them! But
some people have a different opinion. I want to e able to say "yes, you
can have that when you use Linux".

The comparison you should object to about Microsoft is that they don't
offer alternatives.


--
Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.
- Og Mandino
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Monitoring and Alerts
    ... Microsoft CSS Online Newsgroup Support ... This newsgroup only focuses on SBS technical issues. ... | Subject: Re: Monitoring and Alerts ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • RE: Sharepoint Alerts
    ... Microsoft CSS Online Newsgroup Support ... This newsgroup only focuses on SBS technical issues. ... | Thread-Topic: Sharepoint Alerts ... |> Go to Sharepoint Central Administration - Virtual Server ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Alledged security warning messages from Microsoft
    ... That pop-up is not a Microsoft Pop-up as they do not use them. ... >>> I keep getting a what appears to be a popup window from ... >>> Microsoft Internet Explorer that says "Your System Maybe ...
    (microsoft.public.security)
  • RE: SBS 2003 CompanyWeb Alerts
    ... Microsoft CSS Online Newsgroup Support ... This newsgroup only focuses on SBS technical issues. ... >Thread-Topic: SBS 2003 CompanyWeb Alerts ... Create a distribution group. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Event Alerts
    ... Where did you configure the event alerts? ... Microsoft CSS Online Newsgroup Support ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)