[HN Gopher] Why Postfix is called Postfix and IBM secure mailer
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Why Postfix is called Postfix and IBM secure mailer
Author : gurrone
Score : 72 points
Date : 2022-03-28 15:13 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (marc.info)
(TXT) w3m dump (marc.info)
| geocrasher wrote:
| A neat bit of history. Just the name Postfix has always conjured
| up in mind that it was fixing a problem. And anybody who's ever
| used Sendmail knows which problem it was fixing :D There's also
| qmail, but we don't discuss that in good company.
| _nickwhite wrote:
| How many greybeards here remember the O'reilly Sendmail bat
| book[1]? I built an ISP off of deciphering cryptic sendmail.cf
| parameters from it. This is what the "fix" in Postfix aims to
| "fix".
|
| (Although the Postfix config files are no walk in the park
| either.)
|
| [1] https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/sendmail-4th-
| edition/97...
| slillibri wrote:
| But you don't need to know cryptic sendmail.cf parameters, you
| can just use m4 macros which are totally not cryptic at all.
| kstrauser wrote:
| For the benefit of those fortunate enough to have never had
| to configure that beast, you can find any number of
| terrifying examples. Here's one: https://tldp.org/LDP/nag2/x1
| 4661.html#X-087-2-SENDMAIL.MC.UU...
|
| From that, we see LOCAL_NET_CONFIG #
| This rule ensures that all local mail is delivered using the
| # smtp transport, everything else will go via the smart host.
| R$* < @ $* .$m. > $* $#smtp $@ $2.$m. $: $1 < @ $2.$m. > $3
| dnl
|
| Clear as day, right?
| em-bee wrote:
| it's been a few decades that i had to deal with sendmail (i
| have a vage memory of having read the whole book on it,
| though i could be wrong because i also remember joking that
| i was waiting for the movie instead of reading the book)
|
| anyways, after staring at this for a few minutes and
| without looking up any syntax, a few things became
| noticeable:
|
| _R$* < @ $* .$m. > $*_ is matching a pattern, with each $*
| being assigned to $1, $2 and $3 respectively.
|
| $m must contain the local domain. so effectively this
| pattern matches any mail addressed to a host with the local
| domain.
|
| _$#smtp_ if that pattern matches, use smtp,
|
| _$@ $2.$m._ by connecting to $2.$m. (which means, just use
| the host that was specified in the original mail)
|
| _$: $1 < @ $2.$m. > $3_ (not sure what this part does. my
| guess is: rewrite the email address as specified here, that
| is in this case don't rewrite it at all.)
|
| it's terse, but regular expressions are worse than this
| particular example.
|
| now i need to go look up the syntax to see how much i
| actually got right.
|
| for example i have no idea what the $3 parameter is for. i
| am guessing $1 is the part before the @ in an email. $3
| could be the From address or have something to do with
| alternate addressing schemes
| kstrauser wrote:
| There were lots of people who could read this for a
| living. I was more or less able to at one point. Wow, I'm
| glad that I don't have to anymore, though, in much the
| same way I'm glad I never had to learn TECO.
| vlowther wrote:
| You can now. That was not always the cas e, and that is one
| of many reasons I used postfix instead of sendmail back in
| the day.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Poe's Law in full effect.
| INTPenis wrote:
| You made an ISP, this guy made Turtle Race[1]. What was that
| about Postfix being complex? ;)
|
| 1. https://www.linusakesson.net/programming/sendmail/index.php
| locusofself wrote:
| I thought it was a play on "pustefix" which is the name of a
| German bear that is on these bubbles:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=german+bubbles+bear&rlz=1C1C...
| locusofself wrote:
| Postfix is good software, but I do not miss managing email
| servers.
| 2ion wrote:
| As a hobby mail everything is fun (from MUAs to sieve). If it
| needs to be reliable it's not. Don't miss self-hosting my email
| service either ("has the response to my application arrived or
| did I fail to receive it").
| tyingq wrote:
| Interesting contrast where the "post" in Postgres is there for
| the other meaning of post.
| tptacek wrote:
| It wasn't originally called Postfix; it was VMailer.
| smcl wrote:
| > "post" was a different word for "mail",
|
| this is clear
|
| > and "fix" was for Sendmail
|
| this is unclear. I don't know how you get "fix" from "Sendmail"
| Bootvis wrote:
| Sendmail was the problem, Postfix was the fix.
| smcl wrote:
| Ah nice, so it's more like:
|
| > "post" was a different word for "mail", and [the
| application was itself a] "fix" ... for Sendmail
| jchook wrote:
| I always thought of "postfix" as in prefix, infix, and postfix
| operators[1].
|
| Curious if this was an intentional pun.
|
| 1.
| https://panda.ime.usp.br/pythonds/static/pythonds_pt/02-EDBa...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| This was a thing at IBM at that time. I remember eyerolling at a
| new employer where we per paying a few thousand dollars per
| server from "IBM-SSH".
|
| IBM-SSH consistent of some IBM guy replacing every instance of
| "OpenSSH" with "IBM-SSH". One of the interns noticed with one
| release the find replace hit the man pages.
| ossusermivami wrote:
| ah the good old days, when a bunch of MTA was coming out (exim,
| vmail, qmail and postfix) to replace sendmail cf and m4
| atrocities.
|
| It's interesting to see that the most popular who came out as
| "winner" has been postfix,
|
| altho these days most people would setup a relay with msmtp going
| to a closed source provider than full fledged postfix/cyrus
| service
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