3 ms·

The Architecture of Open Source Applications: Sendmail (2011)

39 points by weinzierl 3y ago

cvalka 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.
- bigp3t3 3y ago
  Only because of the amount of abuse performed using it... I have fond memories rewriting sendmail.cf and mc files on BSD. Ran servers on pc hardware and mirrored hdd drives; they pushed mail like nobody's business. If the Exchange box fell over at the weekend, sendmail would sit there patiently waiting (screaming DEFERRED silently to log) with tens of thousands of mails until it came alive again, and push them out in minutes, faster than Exchange could receive (I remember spamming #sendmail -q and you could watch the disk activity freak out on exchange ) . Confident sendmail is best mta ever. Do the big players use something else these days? -- Edit to add an ai poem for my favourite mta - Sendmail is not a simple mail app It's a mighty mail transfer agent that can adapt It can process SMTP commands and deliver mails To any destination that it can access Sendmail is flexible and extendable It can be modified to fit any goal or role It can sort, redirect, transform, and control mails With its intricate rulesets and macro code Sendmail is better than MS exchange It's more secure, dependable, and swift It's the default MTA for many Linux systems And it's free and open source, unlike its rival's gift
  - kstrauser 3y ago
    Is your AI a Vogon?
  - assimpleaspossi 3y ago
    My company used sendmail to interface with our one very large and several smaller web sites that interfaced with our C applications running the whole business. Any other mail software required too much fiddling to get an interface to work, if it was possible at all. We loved sendmail.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> Some design decisions were right. Some started out right and became wrong as the world changed. Some were dubious and haven't become any less so. Full marks to anyone who can look back and honestly say as much. I went in skimming to see if there would be discussion of the security and correctness issues that sendmail became unfortunately infamous for, and I really appreciate them being discussed at reasonable length. (And I say that without judgment; I've certainly shipped enough things that lasted long enough for me to realize the errors that I had made in their design and/or implementation.)
justinator 3y ago
"m4 macro processor" shutters
- kierenj 3y ago
  (shudders?)
  - BlueUmarell 3y ago
    (shatters?)
    - aspenmayer 3y ago
      (shutters, as in shuttered, a drastic method to achieve inbox zero, via declaring so-called "email bannkruptcy;" that is to say, closed for business)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- kstrauser 3y ago
  I used it a couple weeks ago when I just wanted to replace a few values in a template file in an automated way. I used sed at first until the number of values involved made it awkward. I certainly didn’t want to bother with jinja or mustache etc for this trivial little case. M4 was there and handy. But I’d rather swallow my own tongue than use it to configure Sendmail again. Postfix had many compelling features that made me want to switch to it. None were as insta-buy as comparing its configuration language to Sendmail’s.
KronisLV 3y ago
The intro describing the history of computers and networking is really interesting to read! It was all before my time, but it truly sounds like it was the equivalent of the Wild West, with so many different architectures and standards. It must have been quite the curious experience to be in the middle of all that!
xeonmc 3y ago
Tangentially related: "The case of the 500-mile email" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9338708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9338708

39 points by weinzierl 3y ago

cvalka 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.
bigp3t3 3y ago
Only because of the amount of abuse performed using it... I have fond memories rewriting sendmail.cf and mc files on BSD. Ran servers on pc hardware and mirrored hdd drives; they pushed mail like nobody's business. If the Exchange box fell over at the weekend, sendmail would sit there patiently waiting (screaming DEFERRED silently to log) with tens of thousands of mails until it came alive again, and push them out in minutes, faster than Exchange could receive (I remember spamming #sendmail -q and you could watch the disk activity freak out on exchange ) . Confident sendmail is best mta ever. Do the big players use something else these days? -- Edit to add an ai poem for my favourite mta - Sendmail is not a simple mail app It's a mighty mail transfer agent that can adapt It can process SMTP commands and deliver mails To any destination that it can access Sendmail is flexible and extendable It can be modified to fit any goal or role It can sort, redirect, transform, and control mails With its intricate rulesets and macro code Sendmail is better than MS exchange It's more secure, dependable, and swift It's the default MTA for many Linux systems And it's free and open source, unlike its rival's gift
- kstrauser 3y ago
  Is your AI a Vogon?
- assimpleaspossi 3y ago
  My company used sendmail to interface with our one very large and several smaller web sites that interfaced with our C applications running the whole business. Any other mail software required too much fiddling to get an interface to work, if it was possible at all. We loved sendmail.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

> Some design decisions were right. Some started out right and became wrong as the world changed. Some were dubious and haven't become any less so. Full marks to anyone who can look back and honestly say as much. I went in skimming to see if there would be discussion of the security and correctness issues that sendmail became unfortunately infamous for, and I really appreciate them being discussed at reasonable length. (And I say that without judgment; I've certainly shipped enough things that lasted long enough for me to realize the errors that I had made in their design and/or implementation.)

justinator 3y ago

"m4 macro processor" shutters

kierenj 3y ago
(shudders?)
- BlueUmarell 3y ago
  (shatters?)
  - aspenmayer 3y ago
    (shutters, as in shuttered, a drastic method to achieve inbox zero, via declaring so-called "email bannkruptcy;" that is to say, closed for business)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kstrauser 3y ago
I used it a couple weeks ago when I just wanted to replace a few values in a template file in an automated way. I used sed at first until the number of values involved made it awkward. I certainly didn’t want to bother with jinja or mustache etc for this trivial little case. M4 was there and handy. But I’d rather swallow my own tongue than use it to configure Sendmail again. Postfix had many compelling features that made me want to switch to it. None were as insta-buy as comparing its configuration language to Sendmail’s.

KronisLV 3y ago

The intro describing the history of computers and networking is really interesting to read! It was all before my time, but it truly sounds like it was the equivalent of the Wild West, with so many different architectures and standards. It must have been quite the curious experience to be in the middle of all that!

xeonmc 3y ago

Tangentially related: "The case of the 500-mile email" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9338708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9338708