> On Thu, Jul 15, 2004 at 09:21:28AM -0400, Andrew Brown wrote:
> > * the smtp listener starts by default, if needed.  the default sett=
ing
> > in /etc/default/rc.conf is still "no", but rc.d/sendmail detects th=
e
> > default setting and will change it to yes if need is determined.
>
> Of course, as always, this kind of magic fails. Damnit, I don't want =
no
> stupid rc.d script to decide that I was wrong and "tune" machine
> configuration parameters for me.

Well, I guess the problem was that you didn't tell the system
what you wanted, and the default changed.  If you had entered
sendmail=3DNO in /etc/rc.conf, no sendmail would have started.

The above wording is however somewhat unfortunate, and can be
misunderstood.  The setting in /etc/defaults/rc.conf is no longer
"NO" but

sendmail=3D${_rc_d_sendmail:-NO}

and is evaluated an extra time by the rc.d/sendmail script, which
makes an attempt at checking whether it really needs to start.
It is rather obvious that this checking can not cover all
possible cases, and that you have found and documented one such
in PR#26391.

The reason for adding these changes is so that newly installed
standalone machines will be able to send e-mail (both to local
and remote destinations) "out of the box", and the changes are
there to avoid a feature regression in this department.  Without
this, e.g. the daily cron reports (or, more generally, any mail
locally submitted) will end up accumulating in the sendmail
submission queue, typically without the administrator noticing.
It was thought that it was unacceptable for us to release 2.0
with this being the default behaviour.

It would be fruitful if those who so vehemently claim that this
Must Be Backed Out could come up with an alternative solution
which avoids the feature regression.  It is worth noting:

1) if you edit /etc/mailer.conf so that the sendmail entry no
   longer points to /usr/libexec/sendmail/sendmail (such as
   should be done if you install another mailer), sendmail will
   not start
2) if you add an explicit sendmail=3DNO to /etc/rc.conf, sendmail
   will not start
3) if you make sendmail set-uid (perhaps not advisable), sendmail
   will not start

It is also worth noting that the new sendmail SMTP listener will
only listen on "localhost", i.e. no "non-localhost network
listener" is added by this change, but, yes, more virtual memory
is consumed by this change in the default case.

Regards,

- H=E5vard