Bug 61459

Summary:	Do not start sendmail in vain
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	Michal Jaegermann <michal>
Component:	initscripts	Assignee:	Bill Nottingham <notting>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:	Brock Organ <borgan>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	7.3	CC:	rvokal
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	i386
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2002-03-20 00:18:30 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Michal Jaegermann 2002-03-20 00:18:25 UTC

Description of Problem:

With a "normal" firewall configuration where smtp port is blocked it
does not seem to be much point in starting sendmail daemon which cannot
receive anything anyway.  This daemon running is not needed neither for
sending out anything nor for a delivery of a local mail; both will work
just fine with it stopped.  The only possible use is for testing or for
a blocking a boot sequence for a long time if a name resolution
happens to be, hmm, imperfect.  The later "use" is likely unintended.

It seems that either startup should examine a status of an smtp port and
refrain from starting up sendmail if this is blocked, but with an override
(like "service sendmail reallystart" :-) or, maybe better, initial
configuration should make sendmail service "off" on all levels if no mail
will be coming.

Comment 1 Bill Nottingham 2002-03-21 04:01:40 UTC

There's no way for the package install system to know if mail will be coming or
not... also, some things talk to sendmail on localhost to send mail.

In general, we don't have a policy for services to check if their ports are open
before starting.

Comment 2 Michal Jaegermann 2002-03-21 04:50:24 UTC

> There's no way for the package install system to know if mail will be
> coming or not.
Eh?  Firewal configuration is a part of an initial install.

> also, some things talk to sendmail on localhost to send mail
To daemon?  Care for an example?  Sending local mail, say from cron,
does not require anything to listen on port 25.  Check for yourself.
The same with an outgoing mail although with that it is a good idea to
run queue from time to time or things may get stuck if the other end
is not a receiving mood.

Comment 3 Bill Nottingham 2002-03-21 05:20:28 UTC

Firewall configuration isn't written before packages are installed. Moreover,
with sendmail-8.12.x, it pretty much has to listen somewhere, so the message
sumbission  stuff can work correctly.