At 20:04 +0100 8/2/2001, Philip Hazel wrote:
>The "quick install" section is supposed to be the README file. Many
>people have put up simple Exim systems in 10 minutes.
>
>Unfortunately, as I've said before, I'm not omniscient[*]. I didn't know
>that there were systems that did not have /etc/aliases files as
>standard. Now that it has been pointed out to me, I will add words to
>the README and the default configuration. And indeed the manual in due
>course (and the book, if there's a new edition).
>
>In fact, "touch /etc/aliases" is not the right thing to do. If you don't
>have any aliases, it is better to cut out the aliasfile director and
>save some work. (But actually, every host running an MTA SHOULD have at
>least a "postmaster" alias, and probably an alias for "root" as well.)
Indeed. touch /etc/aliases is essentially a crutch (and perhaps a
non-working one depending on the umask of the moment).
While we're on the subject, there is Mac OS X, which doesn't have
/etc/aliases and which manages aliases (and nearly everything else, it
sometimes seems ;-( ) using NetInfo. I haven't looked into this in enough
detail to do more than mention it. [There is an /etc/passwd, but it's only
used when one does things like booting into single user, and maybe for a
moment when one boots normally, before lookupd is running.]
[This is both a large "market" and a small one: Mac OS X will soon be...if
it isn't already...the most widely deployed "Unix". But most of the
deployments will not be handling mail with an onboard MTA. For that
matter, as shipped so far, the sendmail installation is broken (there is
group write permission on /), and further there is a faulty .forward file
in root's home directory. Either of those is sufficient to prevent the
mailing of the daily, weekly, and monthly cron-driven task outputs.]
If I have time I'll mess about with Exim on this Mac OS X machine, although
I have no need for it.
--John
--
John Baxter jwblist@??? Port Ludlow, WA, USA
Typing on Mac OS X, with Eudora set to use our Exim for sending, not the
machine's sendmail.
