Re: [Phpgroupware-users] Setting up local mail delivery

[James Mohr]

On Monday 13 June 2005 14:57, Chris Weiss wrote:
> On 6/13/05, James Mohr <address@hidden> wrote:
> > The difference is exactly the point. IMAP and POP3 are *part* of what I
> > would term an email "server" in that they are "serving" the email.
> > Whereas SMTP is simply the transport, which is all I need.
> >
> > In not an issue of being of a "small footprint" or "fancy". It is an
> > issue of not wanting to go through the effort of configuring postfix.
> > Searching freshmeat, sourceforge or anything else looking for a some
> > other "small memory footprint" email server, downloading it, learning how
> > to configure it, and then finally configuring it, is the exact same
> > problem, only with a different color.
>
> "apt-get install postfix"  done.  It comes by default in most distro
> already setup to accept smtp and deliver localy.

I know. That's why I mentioned it below.

> > > IIRC, for php mail() to deliver, you still need an MTA server process
> > > running unless you suid the sendmail binary. (can you say "security
> > > hole"?)  I'd bet your MTA server process will incur minimal overhead
> > > to enable it's port 25.
> >
> > Actually, postfix is already enabled for local delivery by default and
> > other applications have no problem sending email as they send it all
> > locally, phpgw does have a problem. It seems that all that is necessary
> > is to configured postfix to accept the "local" connection from phpgw.
>
> if postfix is on the same box as your mail server then it is "local",
> unless you've firewalled it or added/removed some default setting from
> postfix.

In email terms, there is a difference between "local email delivery" and 
"sending via STMP to the local machine". Each uses a different MTA. I did not 
want to go through the work of setting of an SMTP MTA as the local MTA is 
already working. 

> I think the issue is that you are over-estimating what it takes to run
> SMTP, and imap/pop3 for that matter.  Delivering and serving email to
> system users is blindingly simple on modern linux distros, even with a
> learning curve I'd give it 30 minutes tops.  However, rewritting phpgw
> to do something that only you want to do could take hours and a much
> larger learning curve, and you only want to do it because you are
> scared(?) of learning how to enable smtp.

Hmmm. I looked through my posts and clouldn't find anything where I (or anyone 
else for that matter) suggested or asked the phpgw be rewritten. It was was 
simple question about how email is sent. It not an issue of learning postfix 
as I have already done it on other machines.    

> I can understand wanting things your own way, especialy whan it seems
> so simple.  

Sorry, not to be any more obnoxious than usual, but where the heck did you get 
that from ("wanting things your own way")??? So that I can avoid 
misunderstanding like this in the future, which of my posts led you to 
believe I wanted it "my way"?

> The fact is that smtp is standard, calling a sendmail 
> binary, as php's mail() does, is not standard. 

<sarcasm>
Is that "standard" in an RFC somewhere? 
</sarcasm>
I manage several datacenters for online brokers, web shops, application 
hosting, etc and we a number of mechanisms that report things via email and 
they all use the local MTA ("local" in email terminology, not the "local 
machine"). All of the applications were written by other companies (HP, Dell, 
etc) and they all call the sendmail binary. (I know as we hade renamed it and 
they barfed on us). Granted, connecting to the SMTP port works regardless. 
Most data centers I know of have port 25 disabled except for the few machines 
that are directly involved in accepting email **from other machines**. Are 
you referring to opening sockets yourself as a de facto or a de jur standard?

> Most dedicated web 
> servers don't even have a local mail server installed and using smtp
> will work if the mail server is local or not.  It will even work if
> the mail server is on Windows, Solaris, Commodore64, or a toaster.
> It's standard, flexible, and not as hard to setup as you think.  

Excuse me. In which of my posts did I mention the word "hard" or what phrases 
did I use to give you the impression that I though it was "hard".  In my very 
first post I said "I don't (yet) want to go through the work of setting up 
either an imap or pop3 server." There was nothing about the difficulty about 
installing it.  Granted, I have probably used more time reply to emails than 
I would have configuring postfix, but that happens sometimes.

> Join 
> the masses and setup SMTP :D

My experience says that the "masses" of machines, particularly in a 
professional environment do not have SMTP running. 

> (a hint:  in phpgw tell it that you are using pop3, you don't have to
> have pop3 setup but if you leave as the default imap it will try to
> save the "Sent Item" to your imap account.  with pop3 it won't bother
> because pop3 doesn't have sent items or any other folders)

Thanks for the tip. I will make sure I set it up as pop3.

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