[lpi-discuss] Re: Some thoughts on Sendmail -- FC includes both ...

[Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org>]

From: "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed at reedmedia.net>
> I installed FC4 several times this past week using the bare minimum that 
> the installer allows. (I taught it in a class at Univ. of Washington.)
> Postfix was not installed as far as I saw. (I looked.)

You'll not only find PostFix in the _standard_ Fedora Core (_not_ Extras) RPMs:  
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/4/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/  

And, actually, they did as far back as RHL7.3 too:  
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/7.3/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/  

Red Hat started supporting the LSB standard "alternatives" option
(largely based on how Debian does it), including for the MTA.

> What is done to get FC to "automatically" install Postfix in the default 
> install?

I do full installs and get both, with Sendmail enabled.  Remember, I was
responding to someone else's comment that NetBSD installs both and
enables Sendmail.  I merely said that RHL/FC do the exact same.

Here's the Red Hat Linux 7.3 Customization Guide section:  
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-7.3-Manual/custom-guide/ch-switchmail.html  

"Red Hat Linux 7.3 provides two MTAs: Sendmail and Postfix. If both are
installed, sendmail is the default MTA. Red Hat Mail Transport Agent
Switcher allows a user to select either sendmail or postfix as the default
MTA for the system."

Little has changed in Fedora Core from Red Hat Linux on the MTA selection.

> By the way, some versions of the SuSE also install sendmail too (in 
> addition to Postfix).

Of course.  Because SuSE supports the "alternatives" framework as well,
per LSB compliance.  MTA is a popular "alternatives" implementation.


--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org