Can I remove sendmail?

[jdow]

On 2012/05/30 08:21, Bryn M. Reeves wrote:
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> On 05/30/2012 04:06 PM, jdow wrote:
>> On 2012/05/30 07:51, Bryn M. Reeves wrote:
>>
>>> On 05/30/2012 03:23 PM, sergiocmailbox-fedorausers at yahoo.com.br
>>> wrote:
>>>> ..and I also figured it's required for some basic packages, so
>>>> I'll just disable its service. Thanks.
>>>
>>> I think things should depend on "MTA" or "smtpdaemon" rather
>>> than sendmail itself. The MTA on Fedora systems is hooked into
>>> the alternatives infrastructure so even if you install and enable
>>> postfix or another MTA there is a /usr/sbin/sendmail pointing to
>>> an appropriate binary that can be called in sendmail's place.
>>>
>>> Regards, Bryn.
>>
>> That has been covered, Bryn.
>>
>> {^_^}
>
> Umm, where, Jdow? I see five replies to the thread (not including this
> one) but nobody mentioned alternatives or the virtual provides for
> smtpdaemon/MTA which is kinda important in understanding how the
> packaging of these components work on Fedora systems.
>
> You can also use one of the simple smtp command packages (ssmtp,
> esmtp) if you prefer not to have a receive-capable MTA installed on
> the system. These provide /usr/sbin/sendmail and can be selected in
> alternatives but do not provide smtpdaemon and cannot listen on the
> network for incoming mail. They are a good choice for personal systems
> or systems where you'd rather not administer a full-blown MTA.
>
> For some reason the current ssmtp package doesn't list the
> /usr/sbin/sendmail provide but it is included in the package. I
> haven't checked to see if that would cause any problems while
> attempting to remove any smtpdaemon.

It's been covered as a problem in that it is not a problem - at least
on the RHEL trees. SL2 has this sequence of links:
$ ll /usr/sbin/sendmail
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 21 Jun  7  2011 /usr/sbin/sendmail -> /etc/alternatives/mta
$ ll /etc/alternatives/mta
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 27 Jun  7  2011 /etc/alternatives/mta -> 
/usr/sbin/sendmail.sendmail

So it's not a problem. All that happens is the mta link is redirected to
which ever MTA is active.

So the potential problem has been covered and dealt with.
{^_^}