F20 System Wide Change: No Default Sendmail

[Peter Robinson]

On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 2:45 PM, Sérgio Basto <sergio at serjux.com> wrote:
> On Seg, 2013-07-15 at 10:36 +0200, Jaroslav Reznik wrote:
>> = Proposed System Wide Change: No Default Sendmail =
>> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/NoDefaultSendmail
>>
>> Change owner(s): Lennart Poettering <lennart at poettering net>, Matthew
>> Miller <mattdm at fedoraproject org>
>>
>> No longer install an MTA by default. (Specifically let's remove sendmail from
>> @core and @standard comps groups.)
>>
>> == Detailed description ==
>> Let's change the default install to no longer install an MTA by default.
>> Specifically, let's remove sendmail from the @standard and @core group.
>>
>> On today's Internet most SMTP hosts do not accept mail from a server which is
>> not configured as a mail exchange for a real domain, hence the default
>> configuration of sendmail is seldom useful. Even if the server is not tied to a
>> real mail domain, it can be configured to authenticate as a user on the target
>> server, but again, this requires explicit configuration on both ends and is
>> fairly awkward. Something that doesn't work without manual configuration should
>> not be in the default install.
>>
>> Most MUAs we ship (especially those we install by default) do not deliver to a
>> local MTA anyway but rather include an SMTP client. Usually, they will not
>> pick up mail delivered to local users. This means that unless the user knows
>> about local mail and takes steps to receive local mail addressed to root, such
>> messages are likely to be ignored.
>>
>> On top of that, sendmail has always been a quite surprising choice for an MTA,
>> as most administrators tend to prefer mail systems such as Postfix or Exim
>> these days, and Sendmail appears to be quite arcane to most.
>>
>> Administrators should install the MTA of their choice after installation (or
>> via kickstart) and sendmail should not be the default anymore.
>>
>> Many other distributions do not install an MTA by default anymore, and so
>> should we. Running systems without MTA is already widely tested.
>>
>> The various tools (such as cron) which previously required a local MTA for
>> operation have been updated already to deliver their job output to syslog
>> rather than sendmail, which is a good default.
>>
>> Also see the previous attempt:
>> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NoDefaultMTA
>>
>> == Scope ==
>> Simply remove "sendmail" from all default install groups in "comps".
>>
>> Packages which strictly require a MTA to run might need updating to gain
>> dependencies on "server(smtp)" (but they needed that before too, so this is
>> mostly just bugfixing that's useful anyway). If any of the packages in the
>> default install is one of those, we need to look at it in detail, and find a
>> solution. However, currently no package of the default install is requiring an
>> MTA.
>>
>> Proposal owners: Commit a change to "comps" to remove "sendmail" from it.
>>
>> Other developers: logwatch/logcheck might need updating to not require an MTA
>> for delivering log changes. Some packages might need a dependency on
>> "server(smtp)" added.
>
> I'd like understand how cronjobs deliver his emails , to root user ?


By default the mail is sent to the local user and that will be with
the local MDA which is procmail (even used by sendmail) and I don't
believe that's being removed as part of this.

Peter