Feature requests from a new user
"za3k.za3k.com via nullmailer" <[email protected]> Mon, 18 May 2020 00:54:33 -0700
| Newsgroups | gmane.mail.nullmailer |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Hey, took me a while to set up nullmailer and I had some suggestions to streamline things. 1. Defaulting the port to 587 if "--starttls" is enabled might be reasonable if this is standard enough, as is done for "--tls"? I think I found some erroneous documentation that this was already the case, but I can't find it again, sorry. 2. I had a lot of problems with error message "Sending failed: Host or network unreachable". It would be good to be more specific. I would suggest - Including the port in "starting delivery". - Give the exact line you can use to reproduce using 'smtp'. Also, document that 'smtp' exists. 3. Add a clarification that "tls-anon-auth" is a TLS authentication mode unrelated to SMTP, not "TLS authentication + no SMTP authentication". This was definitely a dumb mistake on my part, but hey, it will probably help someone. 4. Your man pages for nullmailer-send have good explanations and clear examples, but it's not organized in a way that's friendly for new users (i.e. basically all readers). The problem is that a new user doesn't know which man page(s) to read, and how to set up a new system. There is no "starting point" to read from, and then read sub-sections as clearly needed. There are too many pointers (cross-references) at each step, with no clear pointer to follow: nullmailer(7) points at everything without directly telling you how to use or configure the system; sendmail points at nullmailer-inject and nullmailer-smtpd; and nullmailer-send, nullmailer-queue, and nullmailer-inject contain the actual control files, which is what the user is probably looking for. (I think this is ultimately coming from a desire to write everything in exactly one place, one time? Although it's not inherently a problem in documentation, I would recommend against when there are multiple "documents" which could be read separately, as in this case.) I think it's most worth re-organizing things so nullmailer(7) is a centralized introduction: - Add what each program does, in one line, so people know what man pages to read more about. - How to configure a new system. That probably means, put information about all control files in nullmailer(7), in full detail. Either duplicate information to nullmailer(7), or move it to nullmailer(7) and have the command-line programs reference nullmailer(7) with a list of the options which they use (currently it is vice-versa). - Possibly, include an entire example configuration, or checklist/tutorial of steps to do when setting up a system. If you'd like, I can write a patch for any/all of the above.