Disabling Postfix, Raid services, inetd

[Tony Arnold]

Tom,

On Sun, 2005-05-29 at 12:16 -0500, Tom Adelstein wrote:
> I understand why Linux has traditionally provided default MTAs over the
> years. In fact, I used to use localhost as my smtp not too many years
> ago. With RBL and other blackhole spam lists, localhost doesn't see much
> light of day when one uses it for Internet mail (undeliverable is the
> usual result). Aside from local mail, what role does it play on a Linux
> desktop system?

It can be useful. The main reason I use Postfix on my desktop is that
the mailrouter at work requires authentication if I use it from off
campus (my mail looks the same whether I send from home or from work).
Thus, I've configured Postfix to provide the authentication on my laptop
and my home machine and configured all my mail clients to use 'sendmail'
for outgoing mail. That way, if I need to change my authentication
details, I just change it in one place. There is also less information
to provide when configuring outgoing mail. I like to try out several
different mail clients and indeed some have useful features not in
others, so I find this setup very useful to me.

The other reason I like it is the logging and the instant response I get
from the mail client. The logging is useful to check that mail has been
sent and the instant response is because the mail client does not have
to wait for any remote machine to accept the connection.

For someone who does not do all this stuff, then I can see that Postfix
may not be necessary, although systems like anacron do use it to send
results of failed jobs locally.

Regards,
Tony.
-- 
Tony Arnold, IT Security Coordinator, University of Manchester,
Manchester Computing, Kilburn Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL.
T: +44 (0)161 275 6093, F: +44 (0)870 136 1004, M: +44 (0)773 330 0039
E: tony.arnold at manchester.ac.uk, H: http://www.man.ac.uk/Tony.Arnold