msmtp vs msmtp-mta package, which one to choose?
The Arch Linux Wiki, a great resource in general for all Linux operating systems, explains that msmtp-mta
merely creates an alias for sendmail
. This means you will have broader support for programs that require a sendmail compatible system.
There is an existing question which discusses how to configure the mailing system of cron
. However, again, I would just recommend the Arch Linux Wiki which explains that msmtp-mta
will probably cause cron to Just Work.
The package description for msmtp-mta
documents that it is a wrapper which will pull in msmtp
as a dependency anyway.
This package provides the regular MTA program.
This is somewhat obscure, but apparently means sendmail
and newaliases
.
The package's file listing reveals exactly what it contains. As of right now (version 1.6.6-1) it contains the following files:
/usr/bin/newaliases
/usr/lib/sendmail
/usr/sbin/sendmail
/usr/share/doc/msmtp-mta/changelog.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/msmtp-mta/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/msmtp-mta/copyright
/usr/share/lintian/overrides/msmtp-mta
/usr/share/man/man1/newaliases.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/sendmail.8.gz
(In case you are unfamiliar with Debian packages, the stuff in /usr/share/doc/mssmtp-mta
is just standard metadata for the package, and the /usr/share/lintian/overrides
are specifics for the lintian
package integrity checker, probably to say that it's okay for it to ship the same binaries as some other packages which also implement the legacy Sendmail command-line API.)
So in other words, if you require sendmail
on your system, install the MTA package; otherwise the base package should suffice.