What services necessary for email

[robert McLean]

I have another thread going discussng my attempts to connect to the internet, and this is related, but I think sufficiently different to warrant a seperate thread.

In reviewing what services I have running I came across "sendmail" and "sm-client", which I am going out on a limb and guessing means sendmail client. In the System->Administration->Services menu I find sendmail with the following description ".. Mail transport Agent moves mail from one machine to another.." I dont see sm-client listed there, but I do see it scrolling by when I boot up.

My question is, what exactly do they mean by machine ? do they mean only machines connected on the same network as mine, or do they mean a machine connected to me via internet or via email via my ISP ? In other words, if I dont have a network, but do want to do email, do I need these services ?

I ask because when I boot up, and if I have my DSL modem switched on, when the boot up process gets to sendmail it pauses for several minutes, and my modem leds show activity. And then the same thing at sm-client, which is the next service loaded. This may be normal, or it may relate to the other difficulties I am having, I dont know. If I knew that I did not need these services I would deselect them and speed things up a bit.

thanks

[markjensen]

Ugh. Perhaps my biggest gripe with RedHat/Fedora is their inclusion of sendmail as part of a default desktop install.

You do not need (or want!) sendmail for normal operation. If you are running a mail server, then sendmail (or other MTA) will be needed. You just want a mail client (or MUA), such as slypheed, kmail, thunderbird or so forth.

I recommend using chkconfig to shut off sendmail for all runlevels. Or, better yet, remove sendmail with a yum -y remove sendmail

[robert McLean]

Thanks, I was hoping for an answer like that. I will remove sendmail.