Re: Changing the default for `send-mail-function'

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3608 bytes --]

On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 6:37 AM, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>wrote:

> David De La Harpe Golden <david@harpegolden.net> writes:
>
> > AFAIK there _has_ to be auth on 587 per rfc.
>
> If you're relaying; yes.  But if you're just accepting mail to local
> users, there should be no need for AUTH.
>
> You would open up a terrible exposure to potential spamming! Anyone,
anywhere could post messages.

I'm not sure we are not just creating problems here. Perhaps we just need to
stop, think about how it use to work, think about how it should work and
then work out how to migrate from the old to the new.

There was nothing magic about the old default behavior as far as I am aware.
From memory, if I started emacs and sent a message, it used my local MTA. It
assumed that was configured and working. If there was no local MTA or if it
was misconfigured, then mail failed. It may fail silently or it may alert me
that delivery failed - that all depended on the level of configuration of
the local MTA.

As I understand it, the proposal is to change the default to use
smtpmail-send-it as the default. That is what I currently use (in fact, I
swapped to it because I got sick of my Linux distro upgrading my exim4 and
silently breaking its config - I still run a local version of exim4, which
is used by everything else, such as scripts etc. I also like to use my
organisations smtp server directly as it alerts me to issues with their mail
server, which has been a little unreliable. Using my local MTA tended to hid
such problems).

So, for me, the change in default will have no effect. However, I'm not sure
how it would work for those who are using a local MTA - especailly one which
is not configured to listen on port 25 i.e. just dispatches mail via calls
to sendmail or something similar. If smtpmail-send-it can be setup to
default to the local MTA and handle local MTAs which don't bind to
localhost:25, when no other configuration information is provided, then
wouldn't that change in default be invisible and therefore a non-issue? (I'm
ignoring the win32 issues as I don't run that platform and have no idea what
strangeness it does).

If the default can be changed, but the change has no 'real' impact on the
user, then its not a problem. However, if changing the default means the
user needs to do additional configuration, we need to minimise that pain to
help them migrate.

I think the change in default is more in lines with how other mail clients
handle it these days. In fact, I was surprised by the statement that Ubuntu
installs exim4 by default. I distinctly remember having to install exim4 on
both of the last two ubuntu systems I setup. On one, I don't think anything
was installed by default and on the other, I think it may have been postfix.
Most ISPs now block mail relaying, so any local MTA needs to be configured
as a smarthost anyway and as has been pointed out by others, most Linux mail
clients now require you enter the smtp server, port and (optionally) auth
info when configuring the client. So, I think the change is in the right
direction, but as it is changing a default, extra care needs to be taken to
ensure we don't screw over existing users who are use to the old default of
using the local MTA.

Many of the other suggestions in this thread have some merit, but I think
are largely a distraction from the main issue - how to change the default
with minimal impact on established user expectations. If we cannot make the
change largely 'invisible', then it needs more change
management/communication so that fewer people are caught by surprise.

Tim

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 4252 bytes --]