I sent this to Dave privately because I thought he had mailed me
off-list (I didn't notice that he had Cc'ed the list).
----- Forwarded message from dman <dsh8290@???> -----
From: dman <dsh8290@???>
To: "Dave C." <djc@???>
Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 16:53:50 -0500
On Tue, Jan 01, 2002 at 03:47:33PM -0500, Dave C. wrote:
| On Mon, 31 Dec 2001, dman wrote:
|
| > On Mon, Dec 31, 2001 at 02:47:09PM -0500, Dave C. wrote:
| > |
| > | Keep in mind you should be using an actual MUA to read/send email's, not
| > | exim directly.
| >
| > Right, but my MUA needs to use exim.
| >
| > | Exim is an MTA,m *NOT* an MUA (eg, its not comparable to Outlook Express
| > | or Netscape Communicator, its comparable to eg, MS Exchange Server )..
| > | it is a mailserver itself..
| >
| > Right.
| >
| > | Many (but not all) unix MUA's can be set to use SMTP to a remote host to
| > | send mail,
| >
| > Here's the problem. A MUA should not be dealing with SMTP -- an MTA
|
| Well, perhaps, but most MUA's on 'single user' systems (eg, windows
| boxes), *DO* have to use SMTP to submit messages for delivery
Yes, windows systems are sorely lacking in many features. How can I
send a mail to the admin of the windows box I'm using? Impossible
unless I know exactly who the admin is, and what ISP he uses. With
*nix I can mail to root.
| > should. mutt (and, AFAIK, elm and pine) do not do SMTP at all.
|
| I know pine supports SMTP,
oh, ok.
| and I think mutt does too.
nope.
http://www.fefe.de/muttfaq/faq.html#SMTP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How can I make Mutt use a SMTP server to send email, like Pine or
[insert favourite Windows-based email client here)?
You can't. Mutt is a MUA (Mail User Agent), not a MTA (Mail
Transport Agent). Other email programs include MTA functionality
but the Mutt way is to use the proper tool for each task, instead
of making a giant program that does everything. In short, it's
not Mutt's job to get the mail to a remote SMTP server.
<... continues with suggestion to use ssmtp ...>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Not sure about elm.
I'm not sure, but I don't think it does.
| Mozilla and Communicator (4.x and 6.x) do, and most of the newer
| KDE and Gnome MUA's do as well.
Yes, but many of them are fairly buggy or unstable. SMTP is just one
more feature the developers must get right in all their free time ;-).
| So, you don't *have* to use an MTA on a workstation,
What if my cron job fails? How will it notify me? What if something
goes wrong on the workstation, how will it notify the admin (I'm
thinking of tripwire or other monitoring tools)?
| and unless you are familiar with how to operate one, and understand
| the responsibilities you take on by doing so, you shouldn't.
You should have one, setup as you describe below
| That said, if you *do* understand how your choice of MTA works, that you
| really don't have a real 'local' domain, and how to make it use a
| smarthost, that is a perfectly valid setup.
Systems should have this setup out-of-the-box (as much as possible).
I don't know if the 'eximconfig' program is a Debian-thing or if it
comes from Philip or someone, but it works very well to create an
exim.conf. It can create a smarthost configuration (given the name of
the server) or it can create a "real" internet site configuration.
-D
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Q: What is the difference betwee open-source and commercial software?
A: If you have a problem with commercial software you can call a phone
number and they will tell you it might be solved in a future version.
For open-source sofware there isn't a phone number to call, but you
get the solution within a day.
