[OmniOS-discuss] Bloody // mailwrapper & mta mediator

[Paul B. Henson]

On Wed, Nov 04, 2015 at 10:00:45AM +0200, Lauri Tirkkonen wrote:

> I reported the issue because I think it's very important that OmniOS
> ships with a working MTA out of the box, because things like cron do
> need one.

An "out of the box" omnios install is basically unusable. There's a root
user with a blank password and no networking configured (unless you've
customized the install). After the basic install, you need to configure
the box to make it usable for your purposes (whether that's manually
done or via some automated configuration process). IMHO, installing and
configuring your mailer of choice should be part of the post-install
configure/customize process.

> You don't have to *use* sendmail. I don't really understand why you're
> objecting to its mere presence on disk; it's not very large.

I'm a purist, it's a matter of principle, and forcibly bundling
unnecessary components violates what I consider the omnios philosophy of
minimalization.

> OmniOS at present only ships one MTA choice, and that happens to be
> sendmail. I would not mind that being some other MTA, but I think there
> needs to be one in the base install.

We'll have to agree to disagree on whether or not a (specific) MTA is
considered a core component of an OS. While I don't think an MTA should
be installed by default, if one is I think a user should be able to
remove it and replace it with another, not have it cast in stone and
hiding in the shadows under a tarp pretending it doesn't exist.

Although it seems we'd both be happy if Dan ditched archaic sendmail and
bundled postfix ;)...