Sending mail without running Sendmail

Hi guys:
I am running RedHat 2.1. I don't want to run sendmail on my system since my system won't be a mail server/relay. However, I would like to send mail from the server. I understand this can be done without running sendmail. Can you guys give any tips on how this can be done.

This is what I tried:
I disabled running sendmail at boot time/.
Stopped sendmail server
Crontab entry for sendmail with -q

After this i try sending mail by
# mail -v abc@xyz.com

I get the following error
abc@xyz.com... Connecting to [127.0.0.1] via relay...
abc@xyz.com... Deferred: Connection refused by [127.0.0.1]


You tips would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,


G

What happens if you try
"telnet xyz.com 25"
(where 25 is the SMTP port, see /etc/services)
Is the connection accepted? Can you send mail like this?

Maybe they refuse you because they think you're a spammer.

You need to set sendmail to only listen only on loopback, which I'm pretty sure is the default behavior. Start the daemon back up and check which interfaces it's running on with netstat.

Also, don't cross post.

I recall you can forward mail to a default SMTP server (SMART_HOST) without starting the sendmail daemon. Open /etc/mail/submit.cf , enter your smtp server's name next to the DS directive.

ie: DS smtp.example.com

save and then use the mail or sendmail command
(mail uses sendmail anyways)


hope it works out!

Don't edit the .cf files. That's a no no. Do edit the .mc files and use m4 to rebuild the .cf files.

It's generally a good idea to run a MTA listening on localhost, even if the machine will not be handling mail. *NIX machines have traditionally had one, and a lot of software expects to be able to mail that way.

You are right about the submit.mc ... I am just plain lazy. For any modifications it's better practice to edit via the submit.mc .