[Mimedefang] Fedora to replace sendmail with Exim as default MTA?

Chris Gauch cgauch at digicon.net
Wed Feb 23 10:54:59 EST 2005


> Well, historically, Sendmail had a bad security record.  It has improved
> tremendously in the last 5 years or so.

A large part of Sendmail's bad security record has to do with the fact that
the Internet was a bit less "hostile" years ago and spam was only known as
food product.  Sendmail was initially built (like some other MTA's) to
simply relay mail all over the place without asking any questions.  Either
way, it's still the fault of the administrator for not making the necessary
configuration changes to lock things down.  Now sendmail is developed with
security measures in mind -- at least an unknowing user can install sendmail
without having their server being used as a mail relay hub; everything is
closed down by default, the user/administrator must explicitly enable/open
up relaying for particular domains, etc. for handling Internet mail.  

> Most big, serious organizations we've dealt with use either Sendmail
> or Postfix.  In the UK, Exim tends to be more popular (probably because
> it was written at Cambridge), but I haven't encountered a single large
> Exim user in North America.

I still see a bulk majority of ISPs and corporations using sendmail;
probably due to its long-time use and wide distribution.  While the
configuration of sendmail isn't exactly straight-forward, it's nothing that
a few minutes of RTFM can't handle. 

- Chris




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