8.04 MTA?

[Derek Broughton]

Mario Vukelic wrote:

> On Sun, 2008-07-27 at 13:24 -0700, Robert Holtzman wrote:
>> I see that sendmail is not the default MTA. I can't find what is.
> 
Is sendmail the default on _any_ Linux distro?  Not one of the ones I've
used.

> http://www.google.com/search?q=ubuntu+default+mta ? :)
>  
>> Searching the system shows no postfix, exim4 or anything else that I can
>> find.

Ubuntu doesn't have a "default" MTA, because...
> 
> A desktop system rarely needs an MTA, and Ubuntu's default setup does
> not require one. Installing an MTA for users who don't need one and who
> don't know what an MTA is has no benefit in the best case and is an
> added security liability in the worst case.

Indeed.

> postfix is still the default MTA because when you don't have one
> installed and install a package that depends on having an MTA, Ubuntu
> installs postfix as the dependency. It is also the default because the
> offical docs assume or describe postfix, as you have noticed. Further, I
> expect that the server team focuses its testing on postfix.

Specifically, Ubuntu packages requiring an MTA depend on "postfix |
mail-transport-agent", so that if any MTA is already installed, it fulfills
the dependency, but if no MTA is installed postfix is requested.
-- 
derek