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<H1>[Mageia-dev] [RFC] msec (nail) can't send reports to local users accounts - require an MTA?</H1>
<B>Florian Hubold</B>
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TITLE="[Mageia-dev] [RFC] msec (nail) can't send reports to local users accounts - require an MTA?">doktor5000 at arcor.de
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<I>Fri Sep 23 17:12:59 CEST 2011</I>
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<PRE>Am 23.09.2011 15:32, schrieb Frank Griffin:
><i> On 09/23/2011 06:49 AM, andre999 wrote:
</I>>><i>
</I>>><i> Currently, entering a userid alone does not work. It has to be an email
</I>>><i> address.
</I>>><i> Note however that <A HREF="https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev">userid at localhost</A> _is_ an email address.
</I>>><i> We could change it to accept only a valid format email address or a valid
</I>>><i> userid, in the latter case msec adding the @localhost part. IIRC,
</I>>><i> @localhost must be in a certain config file, which is the case by default.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> If you're referring to the Security panel in Summary, you certainly *can*
</I>><i> enter a userid. I regularly enter "root", and then give "root" a .forward
</I>><i> file to redirect from there.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> There seems to be some confusion between the functioning of an MUA and MTA.
</I>><i> They function identically, except that the MUA uses SMTP on behalf of a
</I>><i> single user and the MTA uses it on behalf of many users. Also, an MUA
</I>><i> receives mail for its single user by polling an MTA, while an MTA typically
</I>><i> listens for incoming connections from MUAs or other MTAs and receives
</I>><i> unsolicited mail for its many users.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> Both of them use exactly the same SMTP exchange to hand mail off to an
</I>><i> intermediate or final-destination MTA, and both of them need to be configured
</I>><i> with the information necessary to open a socket connection to that receiving
</I>><i> MTA.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> You only need an MTA on the sending system if the recipient is a user who
</I>><i> uses the sending system as its MTA. Unfortunately, that includes the case of
</I>><i> the user-to-user mail on the same system.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> So, regardless of what the RPMs require, msec really only needs an MUA that
</I>><i> is properly configured to hand mail off to the desired MTA, which can be on
</I>><i> another system entirely. The requirement for a local MTA only arises if you
</I>><i> want users on your system to be able to receive mail, whether it's sent by
</I>><i> msec or anything else.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> But in either case, you can't get around having to configure the MUA. If you
</I>><i> don't, the default config is usually to target an MTA on localhost. And the
</I>><i> default config for most MTAs when presented with a userid as an address is to
</I>><i> rewrite the address to <A HREF="https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev">user at localhost</A> and deliver it locally. So yes, if you
</I>><i> don't configure the MUA to use an off-host MTA, you will need an on-host
</I>><i> (localhost) MTA. If you don't have one, the MUA's response is unpredictable;
</I>><i> it may throw an error, or it may (if it has root access) put the mail in
</I>><i> /dead.letter.
</I>><i>
</I>><i>
</I>>><i>
</I>>><i> The best solution is to ensure that an MTA is always installed.
</I>>><i>
</I>><i>
</I>><i> I'd vote for that for simplicity, provided the default configuration made it
</I>><i> usable only for local delivery to minimize security implications.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> However, I think there is a better solution. MTAs all simulate the sendmail
</I>><i> API, and since sendmail is usable as an MUA as well, so are the various
</I>><i> MTAs. Real MUAs aren't that uniform. Virtually all mail reader apps use
</I>><i> their own internal MUAs to send mail, and have their own specific
</I>><i> configuration mechanisms, e.g. thunderbird, seamonkey-mail, evolution.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> In fact:
</I>><i> [<A HREF="https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev">root at ftgme2</A> ftg]# rpm -q --whatrequires mail
</I>><i> no package requires mail
</I>><i> [<A HREF="https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev">root at ftgme2</A> ftg]# rpm -q --whatrequires mailx
</I>><i> msec-0.80.10-2.mga1
</I>><i> [<A HREF="https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev">root at ftgme2</A> ftg]# rpm -q --whatrequires nail
</I>><i> lsb-core-noarch-4.1-9.mga2
</I>><i> [<A HREF="https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev">root at ftgme2</A> ftg]# rpm -q --whatrequires sendmail-command
</I>><i> lsb-core-noarch-4.1-9.mga2
</I>><i> [<A HREF="https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev">root at ftgme2</A> ftg]# rpm -q --whatrequires mail-server
</I>><i> no package requires mail-server
</I>><i>
</I>><i> So, it might be a lot cleaner if we just changed msec to do its own crippled
</I>><i> send-only MUA activities, This is really a trivial programming exercise, as
</I>><i> indicated by this comment block from a C program I wrote to do exactly this:
</I>><i>
</I>><i> ************************************************************
</I>><i> The mail file contains SMTP commands with interspersed message
</I>><i> data, as follows:
</I>><i> HELO ...
</I>><i> MAIL FROM:...
</I>><i> RCPT TO:...
</I>><i> (repeats for each recipient)
</I>><i> DATA
</I>><i> (mail headers and body)
</I>><i> .
</I>><i> QUIT
</I>><i>
</I>><i> We open a session to the remote host's port 25, and ship each
</I>><i> of the SMTP commands, waiting for an acceptable response. The
</I>><i> "acceptable response" to each SMTP command begins with three
</I>><i> digits and ends with a CRLF. We examine only the three digits,
</I>><i> although we record the rest of the text. The acceptable
</I>><i> response for most commands is a "250"; for DATA, it is a "354",
</I>><i> and for QUIT it is a 221. We do not actually verify the
</I>><i> responses, since mailservers may vary, but simply forge on
</I>><i> unless we get an I/O error from the socket. The user should
</I>><i> be able to diagnose any errors from the transcript.
</I>><i> ***********************************************************
</I>><i>
</I>><i> That's if you do it from scratch; I have to think that perl already has
</I>><i> library support for sending mail. Of course, you'd probably not want to
</I>><i> hardcode port 25, and msec would need configuration which could be handled by
</I>><i> having a disabled entry field for host/port that gets enabled if you fill in
</I>><i> a mail recipient.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> If the host is missing, localhost, or the known host name of the local
</I>><i> machine, you'd want additional checks that something providing mail-server is
</I>><i> installed, and prompts to choose one if none is installed.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> Same support in msecgui, of course.
</I>><i>
</I>><i>
</I>><i>
</I>So, when it comes down to the 4 choices, can i sign you up for number 3?
dma is a really small MTA, requires no configuration so far and if the
user installs a full-blown MTA that one is used instead of dma.
Or did you volunteer for the programming work on msec? ;)
BTW: The discussion goes on and on, so far i have only 2 conflicting votes.
We need to at least find a concensus.
</PRE>
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