Why modify sendmail.cf instead of sendmail.mc?

[IDtheTarget]

I'm kinda new to sendmail, having used postfix most of my linux career. (The reasons should be obvious to anybody who frequents Secunia, Securiteam, or any other security site.)

That being said, what little I've been able to read so far on the intricate mysteries of sendmail configuration all say that we shouldn't be directly modifying the sendmail.cf file, instead we should be modifying the sendmail.mc file and then rebuilding the sendmail.cf file using m4.

Why does scalix require the direct modification of the .cf file? won't that break stuff if sendmail needs to be reconfigured with other stuff (such as amavis, etc)? edit: direct modification required to install clamav and spamassassin, re: http://www.scalix.com/documents/scalix_setup_and_configuration_guide_113.pdf

Also, OT, will commercial Scalix ever support Postfix as an alternative to sendmail? It's SO much easier to configure, and so much more secure. I understand that sendmail is more 'universal', and I'd even use some of the online HowTo's and do it myself, but I don't want to lose the commercial support for which we've paid, even though it would result in a more secure mail server.

Thanks[/url]

[dirk]

Thanks for the heads-up. The whole section in the mentioned PDF needs a rewrite. (Bug 19369)
You should use SMTPMILTER instead SMTPFILTER (have a look at the smtpd.cfg). This eliminates the need of hacking the .cf.

I think everything the question of supporting another MTA should have been already discussed elsewhere in the forum.

[IDtheTarget]

okay, thanks. Is there a howto or some other document I can look at? I'm trying to get this thing installed.

Thanks!

[dirk]

I believe there is currenty no doc about configuring SA for use with SMTPMILTER but looking at the available hints I would start to install SA as usual and configure smtpd.cfg comparable to the Commtouch milter (see Scalix Wiki).

Code: Select all

# master switch to enable milter support (default off)
SMTPMILTER=TRUE

# list of milters to call sequentially (default none)
INPUT_MAIL_FILTER=('spamassassin', 'S=local:/var/run/spamass-milter/spamass-milter.sock, F=, T=C:15m;S:4m;R:4m;E:10m')


If you bought commercial support this might be a problem as this configuration is currently not approved by QA (planned for 11.5).