Reasons for ikeeping an MTA (was Re: Ubuntu is under attack)

[Scott J. Henson]

Peter Garrett wrote:

>On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 11:48:08 -0400
>Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Some have said that we don't need an MTA _just_ for cron, but the fact is
>>that cron is one specific app that _is_ installed and needs to be able to
>>send mail.  Any app that needs to send mail also needs to either force a
>>dependency on _an_ MTA or have an alternative method of notifying a user. 
>>The real error here is that cron can be installed in such a way that it
>>_doesn't_ provide any notification.  If that's fixed in a way that doesn't
>>involve an MTA some people are going to be annoyed, but it would at least
>>be consistent.
>>    
>>
>
>This is exactly right. All the discussion about "postfix is not installed
>by default" misses the point that Derek is making. There needs to be a
>mechanism for cron to pass on its messages. 
>
>  
>
Perhaps dbus would be the proper solution for this?  Isn't there a 
notification icon when the kernel gets updated to tell the user that 
they should probably reboot?  I would think something similar could be 
used to notify the user about cron.  If I remember correctly(I'm at a 
hoary system not a breezy system) its dbus and one could start from 
something like ssmtp to provide the sendmail binaries.  Then instead of 
sending the message onto a mail relay, it could connect to the local 
user's session(if they are in the admin group) and tell them about it.  
That would be the correct way of doing it I think.

>I installed postfix and mailx because I needed to know what the heck cron
>was doing. If there was another way, it should have been implemented. It
>evidently was not - with the result that the users list is now inundated
>with posts, some of which are just noise, but some of which make very
>valid points, IMO.
>  
>

I concider myself an advanced user(I manage > 200 Ubuntu systems for a 
university computer science department) and I regularly ignore these 
emails on my desktop system at home.  I know they are there, but I don't 
care cause I know that in the default install cron will never tell me 
anything I really need to care about.  As for catostrophic events like 
hard drive failures, I told mdadm( in /etc/default) to email my real 
address and I installed smartd and told it to send the email to my real 
address as well.  I would much rather both of these connect to my 
session and tell me about it there as I'm more likely to see it faster. 

Also, whenever I build a system by hand for my personal use, I remove 
postfix and install ssmtp cause I don't need a full mta installed and 
running.  I manage a mail server at work, I don't need to be managing 
one at home.  Please don't put postfix back in by default.  If Ubuntu 
includes any mta, please make it something simple like ssmtp or esmtp.  
I would much prefer a hacked ssmtp like I said above.  That or the 
Ubuntu install should ask the user for an email address to send stuff 
to.  I am sure a much greater proportion of users will never user, or 
know hot to use, mailx or even care unless the message shows up in their 
main account.  And if you are sending a message to a user's mail 
account, please make sure it matters.  Dangling symlinks for some man 
pages are not important.  The only reason my system should be emailing 
me is to tell me its on fire or something equally dire. 

Id just like to point out that these are just my opinions and I don't 
really expect Ubuntu to bow to them and do exactly what I am saying.  If 
they don't I will simply customize my system and keep going without 
losing any sleep about it.