Re: Postfix and local mail delivery - still relevant in 2020?

[mlelstv%serpens.de@localhost (Michael van Elst)]

cryintothebluesky%gmail.com@localhost (Sad Clouds) writes:

>I've been wondering - why have Postfix in the base system and why have
>it enabled by default?

Simple answer, mail is used by automated tasks to deliver results
to users.

You don't need a full mail server for this, on some systems, local
delivery (see mail.local(8)) would be sufficient. But as soon as you
run in a network, the remote delivery comes handy and switching
tools for this is an extra task. I'm not sure if removing postfix
would be a win.


>Most people are not interested in running their own mail server.

You don't run your own mail server by starting postfix as its not
exposed to the outside. By default it is just a mechanism to deliver
messages to users.

It's also not just daily(5) (+weekly +monthly). Any cronjob and at-job
sends output as mail.

Replacing this with syslog might be sufficient, but in most cases
less versatile and less human-friendly.

I can assure you that mail is used to deliver automated messages very widely
and mosts people would be confused if they should read logfiles instead.

daily(5) is more of a problem itself as "most people" don't read the root
mailbox. Directing it elsewhere by configuring a mail alias (and then
remote delivery is usally needed) is often an important part of the
system installation.


>Is this just a vestige of 1980s time-sharing systems, when computers
>were expensive and many different users had to coexist on the same
>system?

It's not much different today. Maybe you don't share the same single
computer with other people anymore (but very often you still do). Instead
you share the same network and use multiple machines. Getting messages
delivered to you then requires sending them through the network. Why
not continue to use the ubiquitious mail system?

-- 
-- 
                                Michael van Elst
Internet: mlelstv%serpens.de@localhost
                                "A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."