> I was remotely testing a web page. A web page error condition invoked > the embedded PHP mail() command. > > To my astonishment something in Centos woke-up Exim. Exim sent the > email > and then became inactive again. The Exim logs does not show any > start-up > lines, just > > 1. input from Apache. > 2. output to remote server. > 3. 'completed'. > > Hours later Logwatch, not yet customised, also caused inactive Exim to > send an email (which got rejected by Exim because it was to local user > 0). > > What causes Centos to temporarily activate in-active (meaning > non-running) Exim ? You don't really need an active smtp daemon to send email or deliver it locally. $ cat /etc/php.ini | grep sendmail