6 messages in net.sourceforge.lists.courier-usersRe: [courier-users] Does courier have...
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Jon NelsonNov 18, 2003 11:49 am 
Bill HackerNov 18, 2003 12:40 pm 
Jon NelsonNov 18, 2003 1:28 pm 
Jon NelsonNov 18, 2003 2:39 pm 
Sam VarshavchikNov 18, 2003 3:37 pm 
Eduardo RoldanNov 18, 2003 8:27 pm 
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Subject:Re: [courier-users] Does courier have a "minimal install" mode?Actions...
From:Jon Nelson (jnel@jamponi.net)
Date:Nov 18, 2003 1:28:40 pm
List:net.sourceforge.lists.courier-users

Did you even *read* my email? Did you understand the question I'm asking? Obviously not, because nowhere did I mention needing (or wanting) pop, imap, webmail, database integration, etc..

Do you know what nullmailer is? Did you read the link about mini qmail?

Additionally, you are dead wrong about courier using just "one" language language ('C'). Courier also uses C++ (and requires a very recent compiler for it), shell, and perl, to say the least.

I didn't ask for an MTA comparison. I'd like to know if anybody has done a truly minimal courier install, and has gone through the steps necessary to determine what the minimum set of install files is. No IMAP, no POP, no webmail, no nothin' but a command-line sendmail-like interface which delivers to a "real" MTA somewhere else, also commonly known as a smarthost.

In the meantime, I'm using nullmailer tied up with socat so I can get SSL/TLS support.

To the rest: if you don't know what nullmailer is, you likely don't know what I want to replace, so if you should choose to answer my question please try to understand what I'm asking.

Finally, Bill Hacker, I do appreciate your response, long and as thought-out as it is, but it doesn't really answer my question (it looks like it tries to get close from time to time), but it doesn't. I should have phrased my question more clearly, and for that I am to blame, hence the clarifying email that I hope this is.

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003, Bill Hacker wrote:

Jon Nelson wrote:

I'm looking to replace nullmailer. I need only the barest minimum out of a courier mta install.

I'm thinking something like this: http://cr.yp.to/qmail/mini.html

- needs to expand minimum aliases - does not do local delivery whatsoever (sends to smarthost only) - contains a /bare/ minimum of files necessary to do delivery, etc.. - may use a queue, but would be nice to avoid in some circumstances - must support SSL/TLS

Is this possible?

*SNIP*

Having at least untarred and read the docs on *many* mailers, installed and tried quite a few of them, I would observe that the 'full' courier-mta *IS* - relatively - already a 'minimal install' - and more easily 'stripped' than most other alternatives.

There are several reasons I say that:

1) most other mailers are not 'full' MTA's, but need to be 'integrated' with an smtpd from one, a popd from another, a third for the imapd, maildrop/pocmail delivery agents, auth, and webmail functionality from yet others... and that is before we get into spam filters, mailing list managers, virus scanners and the like.

A 'typical' Qmail installation - say from the FreeBSD ports tree - is an example, using courier-imap, vpopmail, MySQL, SQWebmail or Squirrelmail, and relying on daemontools and/or tcpwrapper and *their* dependencies...

- By contrast, Courier-mta has all the parts from one 'vendor', and already built to work together. Or not. As they are highly modular, you can sever the functions you do not need... even rm them, and their sources and tarballs if you are building a FreeBSD server onto the average Camera Flash memory card (handy for maintenance, BTW).

2) The 'kit-built' MTA approach, even when integrated and tarballed for you by others (experts, we hope), carries another price: Languages and libs..

Courier-mta is built in compiled C, whose compiler and libs already live on every *N*X box. The resulting binaries are compact, version-dependencies simple, hence the net resource consumption low.

- whereas the other approaches almost always require at least three languages, and sometimes more than one rev level of the *same* language, and are usually updated independently of one another.

Marvelous features that each may have, these language toolsets take up more space and can require more maintenance by far than compiled C.

- The 'typical Qmail' install I mention can require, IIRC, perl, PHP, and Python as well as C..

If 'selective activation' and/or selective deletion of the Courier-MTA modules is still too 'heavy', and IF (and only IF) your minimalist server will be in a protected network position, then you might find some of the *really* minimalist mailer modules in the perl, python, and similar language trees to be able to do the basics. But for RFC compliance and security, 'twould be best to stick with Courier, Qmail, Postfix, Exim, Sendmail... all of which have the usage exposure to be safer and more predictable.

HTH,

Bill Hacker

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-- Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is two wolves attempting to have a sheep for dinner and finding a well-informed, well-armed sheep.

Jon Nelson <jnel@jamponi.net> C and Python Code Gardener