For a KDE or GNOME workstation setup, sendmail starts automatically on bootup. This is a potential issue if a security problem is found in the future. I can understand it being started by default for a Server setup, but why workstation? Does not sendmail require configuration to work properly? Then why not wait until after it has been configured before enabling the daemon.
Just noticed this today.. Basically it's nice to have it running to be able to *send* mail through it but it's not supposed to start it in daemon mode on workstation installations, see your /etc/sysconfig/sendmail, it says: DAEMON=no ..but the initscript still starts it as a daemon. The following patch fixes it. --- sendmail.orig Mon Nov 13 17:24:27 2000 +++ sendmail Mon Nov 13 17:24:44 2000 @@ -41,8 +41,8 @@ makemap hash /etc/mail/$i < /etc/mail/$i fi done - daemon /usr/sbin/sendmail $([ "$DAEMON" = yes ] && echo -bd) \ - $([ -n "$QUEUE" ] && echo -q$QUEUE) + action "" /usr/sbin/sendmail $([ "$DAEMON" = yes ] && echo -bd) \ + $([ -n "$QUEUE" ] && echo -q$QUEUE) RETVAL=$? echo [ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && touch /var/lock/subsys/sendmail
daemon mode from sendmail does not have to do with how it is started from the initscripts functions
Well yes my "fix" is wrong but it doesn't change the fact that sendmail gets started in daemon mode when it shouldn't.