Re: Balsa + libESMTP patch

[Brian Stafford <brian stafford uklinux net>]

On Thu,  3 May 08:12 Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo wrote:

|   I think that removing that option is not a good idea. Anyway in all
| Unix systems a local MTA is installed, because a lot of programs
| (especially cron.d scripts) needs one to send their status to the
| local root.

What is the problem with submitting the messages to localhost:25
(or on port 587 if the MTA is configured for that)?

The MTA is still there and performs the same functions.  Only the
details of the mechanism that placed the mail in the queue changed.

| And I prefer sending mail through my local mailer, as it queues
| my mails until they can be delivered,

The mail queue is not lost by using SMTP to localhost.

| and I don't need to use the relay
| mail provided by my ISP which is really slow.

Well this is one reason libESMTP buffers data just above the
socket level and why PIPELINING is implemented.  Subjectively this
gave good results when submitting mail to yahoo.co.uk (runs qmail
with PIPELINING enabled) compared to SMTP clients without these
features.  The benefit comes about because round trips with the
server are eliminated, both at the TCP level and the protocol
level.  The round trip time will have greater performance impact
on the wide area than for the local area network.

| Anyway, I think that using libSMTP in balsa can be a good idea, as a
| lot of people coming from Windows are used to put a relay smtp in all
| their MUA, and some "Unix people" may choose that this is a good
| solution.

SMTP is a good thing.  It is defined in publicly available standards
and presents a uniform interface regardless of the program that
implements it.  It is a lot more standard than the sendmail command
line or that of other programs that are crippled by having to emulate
sendmail's command line.  Unfortunately, writing a good client for
protocols like SMTP is tricky.  Perhaps this is why programs that
implement the protocol directly are not so common.

|   What I thing have no sense to do is removing the local MTA option.

My position is that its unnecessary.  Convince me that there is
some functionality that is available through an exec'ed MTA that
is *not* available with the SMTP interface and I'll reconsider.

| Both things can coexist fairly good.

Well a program that has two mechanisms for doing the same thing
has more opportunity for bugs than a program with one mechanism.


Please be aware that the Balsa+libESMTP patches have not been
released lightly.  I have been using the modified send.c for
over two months and have sent thousands of mails using it.
If I was not convinced that the code was stable I would not have
released it.  Period.  I want libESMTP to have the reputation for
being solid from day 1.

The real reason my patches remove piping to sendmail is that
retaining it made integrating libESMTP into Balsa very difficult.
I did try to keep this code but eventually I had to make the
decision to drop that support - it was either that or not testing
the libESMTP + Balsa combination.

Regards
Brian Stafford