Re: [Sheflug] exim / general MTA comments.

["Chris J/#6" <nospam [at] nccnet.co.uk>]

> Joking aside, it seems that Exim is pretty straightforward to
> configure - which is nice.
> What is it that makes people still use Sendmail (and programs like
> Bind for that matter) when there are good (if not better)
> alternatives?

Sendmail is still shipped with 90% on Unix-like OSes...including security 
die-hard OpenBSD (though admittedly, they've probably audited it seven times 
over). Why? Because that's what each UNIX has always been shipped with and 
therefore that's what most MTA's have run since the year dot, and therefore 
anything different is a case of spending time (and money in most cases) 
changing the config. People use it 'cos they know it. *New* servers are 
different - admins have a chance to change to a different MTA if they 
want...why not? They've never used anything else, and sendmail does just the 
thing they want it to. And they know the program - so better to stay with the 
devil you know?

Bind is similar. In fact the only alternative to BIND I can think of is 
djb-dns. djb-dns isn't really heavily advertised. Those that follow DJB's 
stuff (ie, most people that use qmail) are more likely to be aware of it than 
anyone else. I get the impression though that djb-dns is only for a small 
installation, rather than a large multi-domained-several-thousand-host type 
database. I could be wrong though :) I've not really looked into it.

> 
> IIRC the vuw.ac.nz servers are on Sendmail - why? 
> What is it that QMail/PostFix/Exim can't do that
> 6-monthly-security-nightmare-Sendmail can achieve?
> 

Depends how long vuw.ac.nz has been chugging along. A 10 year old sendmail 
config at a university which probably has a large alias database and other 
little features would probably take a while to move to another MTA. Time and 
money :) Sendmail though is a lot better than it was for security though.

Chris...

-- 
Chris Johnson            \  "If not for me then, do it for yourself. If not
sixie@nccnet.co.uk        \  for then do it for the world." -- Stevie Nicks
www.nccnet.co.uk/~sixie/   ~---------------------------------------+
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