Features/NoMTA

= No MTA =

Summary
Make the MTA (i.e. ) optional.

Owner

 * Name: Adam Miller


 * email: maxamillion [AT] fedoraproject.org

Current status

 * Targeted release: Fedora 13
 * Last updated: 12 April 2011
 * Percentage of completion: 98%

Done

 * Patch to redirect messages that would be sent to a MTA to syslog in the event a MTA is not present.
 * Patch submitted in, applied to cronie-1.4.4, currently in F13.
 * Add sendmail to comps to ensure it is still installed by default, as expected
 * is listed in the  group.
 * This is for compatibility purposes and may be removed in a future release
 * Remove cronie's hard requirement on

To-do

 * Patch the default configuration for logwatch to not send mail, but to send messages to stdout and then verify the patch to cronie is reporting logwatch messages to syslog accordingly.

Extra credit

 * Add comment to  that shows how to use syslog instead of sendmail:
 * 1) To send cron output to syslog instead of local mail, set CRONDARGS to:
 * 2) CRONDARGS="-s -m off"
 * Verify there are no other packages that will require a patch to function without a MTA

Detailed Description
The presence of a Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) like  has long been the de facto standard. But most systems that aren't mail servers do not specifically need to keep local mail queues or transfer mail to other systems. For the vast majority of users this is simply wasted resources and wasted disk space for the packages installed.

is the only thing in a default Fedora install that still uses local mail to report its status. The  syslog facility exists for this purpose, and our current   setup already uses it to log some messages to.

This feature allows  to optionally use syslog instead of email to report job status, thus making the presence of an MTA completely optional.

Benefit to Fedora
One less required package in the critical path, and we clear the way for removing the MTA from the default install.

Scope
Packages that may require changes:

cronie
is the only package in a default Fedora install that requests the use of an MTA. If  is not present, it will simply stop sending mail. Therefore, if we modify  to send job output to a log file, we can remove the requirement for an MTA with no loss of functionality.

Required changes:
 * 1) Modify   to send job output to the   syslog facility if   is missing
 * 2) Remove   from 's spec file

crontabs
need to be examined to be sure none of them depend on local mail being sent.

logwatch
needs to be examine to see if it actually depends on cron sending email, and patched to use stdout/syslog if so.

How To Test

 * 1) Ensure you have   or higher installed.
 * 2) Edit   and set
 * 3) Remove sendmail (or whichever package is providing your  )
 * 4) * e.g.:
 * 5) Verify that all output from cron jobs shows up in
 * 1) Verify that all output from cron jobs shows up in

User Experience
Transparent to most users. System administrators or integrators who were relying on the implicit dependency on  may need to update their kickstart files etc. to explicitly install their chosen MTA.

Dependencies

 * None

Contingency Plan

 * None needed

Documentation

 * None

Release Notes

 * None

Comments and Discussion

 * See Talk:Features/NoMTA