Les Mikesell wrote:
On Fri, 2006-07-21 at 09:02 -0700, Mark Schoonover wrote:
Thanks for the offer of help! Time is short. It's going to take me about an hour to write up a SMTP email injection script - barring any crazy interruptions. Trying to tackle sendmail will take much longer, time I just don't have right now. Once the script is done, I'll gladly post it to the list for others to use... I find it hard to believe though that no one else has created a script like this. Using Krugle didn't turn up much...
The reason no one else has written that script is that the stock sendmail 'just works' as shipped for sending mail. And if you have something odd locally, it is usually a one-line edit in sendmail.mc to accommodate it.
Well, it may just work for some, but not for others - I'm sure I'm not alone in sendmail not 'just working'. Using sendmail/postfix/qmail to send simple email from cronjobs is like using a jackhammer to drive finishing nails. Why go through all that hassle of sendmail and it's near daily security problems for such a simple task? My network has mixed CentOS and Gentoo systems, with the Gentoo systems not having sendmail installed. Installing sendmail on those systems would take far more time then coming up with a simple script to do what I need. Take into account running another binary, it's just another service taking up resources that doesn't have to be used.
Mark
On Fri, 2006-07-21 at 11:47 -0700, Mark Schoonover wrote:
The reason no one else has written that script is that the stock sendmail 'just works' as shipped for sending mail. And if you have something odd locally, it is usually a one-line edit in sendmail.mc to accommodate it.
Well, it may just work for some, but not for others - I'm sure I'm not alone in sendmail not 'just working'.
If your DNS works and your destination accepts standard smtp, sendmail 'just works' on the sending side. If those aren't true you will run into the same problems (with the possible exception of using the MX address) with any other sending program.
Using sendmail/postfix/qmail to send simple email from cronjobs is like using a jackhammer to drive finishing nails. Why go through all that hassle of sendmail and it's near daily security problems for such a simple task?
There are always people who prefer to invent new security problems instead of fixing the known ones. They are usually good at it.
My network has mixed CentOS and Gentoo systems, with the Gentoo systems not having sendmail installed. Installing sendmail on those systems would take far more time then coming up with a simple script to do what I need. Take into account running another binary, it's just another service taking up resources that doesn't have to be used.
If you never care about queuing/retries when the destination doesn't accept the first attempt, a sender is pretty simple. Or you could ssh it to a real mailer. If you want reliable service it is a different issue and you might as well use something that is already tested.
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Les Mikesell -
Mark Schoonover