James Miller wrote:
I think I'm finally ready to abandon Pine as my e-mail client and to
start using Mutt. I thought of doing this a few years ago, but looking
over Mutt documentation and config files left me bewildered. I'm sure I
will still be confused about some of the program's workings, but it
seems, after 4 years or so of using and admin'ing my Linux system(s), I
have good enough grasp of the program's basics and related e-mail
workings now that I'm ready to give it a serious go. This switch is also
partly precipitated by certain ways in which Pine has been failing me.
Despite what I've said above, the present message is not a Mutt-specific
query: I'll probably be directing those to the Mutt user list. What I'm
wondering about is something more fundamental about e-mail technology.
One of the things that kept me from using Mutt previously was the fact
that it does not do smtp, but rather apparently relies on other programs
such as sendmail for passing mail to servers that in turn pass it to
other servers and eventually to recipients. I don't care how stupid I
might sound to the initiated in saying this, but for the
technically-challenged such as myself, having an extra layer of program
activity between the e-mail client and the outgoing server is confusing:
it's just another set of configuration files to edit and keep current,
and another place to look for errors should problems arise. At the same
time, I suppose there are good reasons for having a separate program to
do mail passing to outgoing servers. The most sensible reason I can
think of is that e-mailing is often done in an institutional
environment, one that has a machine on its network dedicated to mailing
functions. I have no experience of working in such an environment, so
I'm guessing at this, but that seems like it could provide a sensible
explanation for the separation between e-mail client and outgoing mail
server.
Anyway, Pine does do smtp: you enter info about your smtp server in its
config file, and away you go with sending out your mail. Mutt, as I
understand it "will never do smtp" (quotation from a Mutt information
site I haven't checked for a couple years but which I assume to reflect
the current state of affairs). I will thus, I assume, need to look into
getting and setting up a program to interact with the smtp server I will
be sending mail through. Sendmail is one I recall reading about: can
anyone supply names of, and recommendations about, others? I want the
simplest possible program for this one-user (Debian) machine.
Finally, can anyone enlighten me as to why a program like Mutt--which is
actually the only e-mail client I know of that won't interact with smtp
servers--will not do smtp? Is it for puristic reasons, i.e., because it
would somehow contaminate the program's perceived function by
introducing extra functionality? I.e., a line in the sand against
feature-creep? Could it be for some sort of security reasons?
Sorry for the long message. Input will be appreciated.
Thanks, James
PS Recommendations for other text-mode e-mail clients would also be
appreciated.
James -- I don't know why (or even if, really) the authors of Mutt don't
build in smtp support. I could guess, but you don't need uninformed
guessing.
I'm replying only because you reminded us that you are a Debian user.
The off-the-shelf smtp program for Debian is exim, and if you did
anything resembling a standard install of any recent version of Debian,
you already have exim4 on your system, along with a symlink that lets
you run it as "sendmail":
new-flagg:/home/autovcr# ls -l /usr/sbin/sendmail
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5 Aug 30 2005 /usr/sbin/sendmail -> exim4
The details on setting this up (this HowTo is for Debian-Sarge, but I
expect Etch and Sid are almost the same) are at
http://pkg-exim4.alioth.debian.org/README/README.Debian
The short version (for Sarge or Sid, probably Etch too): as root, run
"dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config" and tell it (I think, if I understand
your setup right) "mail sent by smarthost; no local mail". The
"smarthost" is the "smtp server" you identified to Pine.
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