Penguin
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Acronym for Mail Transport Agent

A program to send mail from one machine to another, usually using SMTP, but occasionaly something weird and obscure like UUCP.

sendmail(8), Postfix and Exim are MTA's. Another one that is very popular with ISPs is DanBernstein's qmail?, written with security in mind, for which there has been no exploit since at least March 1997.

See also MDA (Mail Delivery Agent), MSA (Mail Submission Agent), MUA (Maul User Agent), MAA (Mail Access Agent)

It is generally a BadThing? to fsck with a live MTA. If you want/need to migrate to a new MTA, it is a very good idea to test the new config on a SacrificialGoat? before even TOUCHING the live MTA. Once you have the new config tested and working, migrate it to the live machine. But not before you have it working. Trust me, you WONT be sorry. -- TomHibbert