[TriLUG] sendmail vs. postfix - was Re: stupid sendmail question?

[Aaron S. Joyner]

Jason Tower wrote:

>in any case, it sure beats the hell out of *not* using verify.  without 
>it the gateway would accept all mail for the permitted domains
>
>...<snip>...
>
>a local lookup table would help alleviate this, but that 
>requires constant synchronization (best case) or is flat out impossible 
>for one reason or another (worst case).
>
It's always possible, and it's usually not even difficult.  :)  The 
verify feature, as I freely admitted, is an interesting and good idea.  
I just feels like a lazy inefficient system to solve a bad design 
problem.  Granted, for small to medium implementations it's an awful lot 
easier than requiring proper/elaborate design (after all, that's why 
we're arguing against sendmail, as it requires too much effort :) ).  
Another interesting problem would be, if you add a user to the back end 
mail server, and that user asks, "How long until my account is active 
and can receive mail?", the right answer would be something on the order 
of, "It depends on if someone has attempted to send you mail in the last 
X before your account was created.  If they have, then it might be as 
long as Y, if not, it should be as short as Z".  My stock answer to this 
question is, "On the next quarter-hour." - it's a lot more 
straight-forward.  :)

And once more, just to be clear, I *like* and *use* postfix, largely 
because it provides a myriad of conveniences that make it easy to work 
with.  But that doesn't mean that all tools are right for all jobs.  :)  
We'll see how the verify feature holds up under load later today, perhaps.

Aaron J.