very slow boot (newbie)

[Daniel Bye]

On Sat, May 13, 2006 at 07:28:06PM +0100, Barnaby Scott wrote:
> It turns out it was sendmail causing the delay, so now my /etc/rc.comf 
> reads:
> 
> sendmail_enable="NONE"

This is fine, but according to rc.sendmail(8) `NONE' is deprecated and
will be removed in a future release (but, to be honest, it's been going
to be removed in a future release for quite some time now... ;-).  It's
more typing, but the preferred way to disable sendmail these days is
this:

sendmail_enable="NO"
sendmail_submit_enable="NO"
sendmail_outbound_enable="NO"
sendmail_msp_queue_enable="NO"

This prevents any of the various sendmail daemons from starting.

> ...it does not cure the problem for me if I decide that I do want 
> sendmail! I could cross that bridge when I come to it, but I would 
> prefer to gain some insight here if anyone can bear any more on this topic.

I would suggest you look at ssmtp in the ports.  It is a very simple
mail forwarding daemon, that you configure with the IP address of another,
full MTA to which ssmtp will send all your outgoing messages.  Your ISP
probably runs a suitable server for their customers' use.  It means you
won't have to worry about your IP address and DNS resolution and all the
other things that go with running a full MTA, like sendmail, exim or
postfix. 

> 
> Adding
> 127.0.0.1	frankbruno
> to /etc/hosts did not cure the problem. Could that be because the lookup 
> that causes the delay is a reverse one? If so, it would be trying to 
> find a name for 192.168.0.4 (I think that's the one I have been getting 
> recently) which is still not in hosts.

No, it wouldn't help at all - you should return that entry to localhost.

> I would rather not mess with the IP allocation if possible - having it 
> automatic is much more useful and means I cannot create condradictory 
> records in different places.

Fair enough.  KDK's suggestion of using a wrapper script will certainly
get you round this if you decide you need/want to use a more full-
featured MTA.

Dan

-- 
Daniel Bye

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