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

[Scott J. Henson]

Sam Morris wrote:

> Scott J. Henson wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
> What happens if the user isn't online when the message is sent? Will 
> this mechanism take care of storing and queuing up the messages? What 
> if they have two session open--which one gets the message? You will 
> end up reinventing all the complexity of an MTA this way!
>
> A unix system without an MTA configured for reliable (meaning that a 
> message is delivered or bounced), mail delivery is broken. Since this 
> is done (or was, apparently until Breezy came out) without any manual 
> intervention, I don't understand the reasoning behind removing such an 
> important piece of very basic system infrastructure.
>
When you upgrade a kernel you currently see(in breezy) a message in your 
notification area about your computer needing a reboot.  I would say the 
complexity is already taken care of.