On 1/9/24 07:57, Joel Roth via Dng wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 31, 2024 at 10:12:00AM -0400, Steve Litt wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Several disadvantages of Exim were discussed in a different thread. So
>> my question: Why use Exim instead of Postfix or Qmail?
>
> tldr: inertia
>
> Exim became popular many when it was common administer your
> own mail host. It was a great improvement over sendmail.
> Debian made it easy to configure the common case of mail
> through a smarthost. Thus we arrive at the present. I would
> choose something lighter next time, but exim does serves my
> simple purposes just fine.
>

^^^ This. I was just composing a reply in my head as I browsed the thread, but this is about it.

I used to use Sendmail. When Debian changed the default to Exim I learned enough of it to be dangerous, and I've stuck with it ever since. Postfix has been on my "list of things to look at" but as our system here (excepting the last upgrade) "just works" and has generally done so with little to no attention since the mid 2000's, I just stick with it.

There are probably a few better MTAs to look at, but we have Exim locally and on a few geographically diverse machines as backups. A ground up re-config in something new seems an awful lot harder than a tweak here and there every couple of years.

If Debian changed the default then there's a pretty good chance I'd take the time to learn it and figure out how to port our config across, but until then (or Exim fluffs it's lines so badly it becomes a severe risk) we'll probably stick with Exim.

So .... inertia.

Regards,
Brad