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List:       busybox
Subject:    Re: =?koi8-r?b?79TXxdQ6?= SENDMAIL
From:       Denys Vlasenko <vda.linux () googlemail ! com>
Date:       2008-06-30 15:20:06
Message-ID: 200806301720.06165.vda.linux () googlemail ! com
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On Sunday 29 June 2008 11:31, Vladimir Dronnikov wrote:
> Q: I'm getting crazy of what people meant when they invented sendmail
> interface: where sender address is supposed to be obtained from? From
> OPTIONAL -f parameter? From 'From: ' header? From $USER being appended
> by ?$HOSTNAME? From [user:pass@]host[:port]?! Mail servers require
> ADDRESS not username to be passed with EHLO/HELO.

Hehe. sendmail was a disaster. Harrowing tales
of sendmail.cf format which resulted in lines consisting
mostly of punctuation chars are still being told.

IIRC it also had tons of security holes.

The most sad part, I was reading an interview with the guy
who wrote it. Neither interviewer asked "How on earth you decided
to make such config format" etc nor the auther had guts
to tone down interviewer and admit "well, actually take note that
sendmail was written many years ago. I was not as experienced
back then as I am today and sendmail's original design and code
are not exactly too good. Today I'd do it much differently
and better..."

In reality, interview was all rosy and sendmail was obviously
a cornerstone of Unix and a gem of programming art...
--
vda
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