Re: [Exim] FW: Installing exim and removing sendmail

Quoth Nigel Metheringham on Fri, Apr 28, 2000:
> ph10@??? said:
> > I discovered (only last week) that FreeBSD uses /usr/sbin/sendmail and
> > not /usr/lib/sendmail as its standard location for the MTA.
>
> This is fairly standard....

All 4.4BSD systems put sendmail in /usr/sbin. System V puts it
in /usr/lib, but then, this is not the only archaic thing in
System V. Some 4.4BSD systems still have /usr/lib/sendmail as a
symlink to /usr/sbin/sendmail for compatibility reasons. BSDI 3
had, if I'm not mistaken. BSDI 4 doesn't.

> most recent unix variants (that do not feel
> the need for excessive backward compatibility), do not have executables
> (directly) in /usr/lib (there may be directories with executables).

4.4BSD has /usr/libexec and /usr/libdata for some things
previously stored in /usr/lib. /usr/lib is for libraries,
period.

> /usr/sbin is the right location for an MTA - not really a direct user
> program, not needed on root partition.

But /usr/libexec isn't, because sometimes you still want to run
sendmail by hand.

> Most if not all linux distros put their MTA (using a sendmail type API)
> at /usr/sbin/sendmail

They seem to have learned something from BSD. Over several
years, Linux distros acquired /usr/libexec, /usr/share, etc.

Vadik.

--
Taunt not the sysadmin, for he can become you and make your life
interesting.