Re: Sendmail vs. Postfix vs. ?

[Ken Keefe <kaje@digitalfamily.org>]

So let me make sure I have this straight... Sendmail and Postfix only do
SMTP? Other servers like qmail do POP/IMAP?

Ken


On Fri, 2004-09-03 at 14:40, Travis Owens wrote:
> Ken,
> 
> Just a little background on the two SMTP servers. These two servers are
> only for delivery of mail around the Internet from server to server, and
> on the server to the user's mailbox or mail directory. As far as the
> user retrieving their mail, that requires a different server (IMAP or
> POP)
> 
> Sendmail has been around for a long time and is the default on many UNIX
> based OSes. The problem with it, is that it's very confusing to
> manipulate its setup and configuration by hand. As Lee pointed out,
> there are administration modules out there for easier configuration, but
> if you needed to manipulate it on a machine without those helpers
> installed, it can be very frustrating. Also, it's a very large program
> with lots of code. This means that it's kind of bulky in processing
> things and can be slow. One other very important point is the way
> Sendmail has run on the system. It's permissions have been violated many
> times over and caused many opening for hackers.
> 
> Postfix on the other hand is a small group of smaller programs. Due to
> this group design, there are different permissions that each piece
> operates, thus, only one piece of it has the permissions available to
> run as root. This piece is the local delivery agent, since it must write
> to all the user's mailboxes or mail directories. The important thing
> about this, is that the connection to the outside world, never runs with
> these permissions, meaning that it's a very secure oriented program.
> Also, because the whole Postfix system is a small set of tools, it's
> extremely fast. This really isn't noticeable for a small amount of
> users, but when you compare it to Sendmail on a large ISP's scale,
> Postfix will smoke it like it's using a walker. ;)
> 
> For the user retrieval method, I would recommend the Courier apps, which
> will provide your IMAP and POP3 solutions. Also, Courier developers
> liked the Dan Bernstein mail storage method called "Maildir/" (notice
> the importance of the trailing slash) This method puts all the email
> messages you receive into separate files which means that if one were to
> be received corrupted, it will not affect any of the other messages. A
> bit of history here will explain that the Sendmail method was to
> concatenate all messages into one huge file and when the email client
> program would connect, it would be able to separate out the emails, one
> from another. The only problem with this was when you received, say 5
> emails, and the 2nd one was corrupt. This threw your client off when
> trying to separate the other messages and caused the connection to hang
> and eventually die. There were only two options for the ISPs to do, one
> was to edit the file and remove the corrupted message from the group, or
> remove the whole file. As harsh as that sounds, the latter was the most
> typical practice the ISPs would choose to do. So, this other method is
> obviously better. Fortunately, Postfix supports this type of delivery
> method. (hint, hint)
> 
> I hope this helps you!
> Travis
> 
> 
> On Fri, 2004-09-03 at 02:05, Ken Keefe wrote:
> > I am going to begin working on an email server for a group ranging from
> > 50 to 500 people. I have not previously worked with any kind of mail
> > server and I wanted to get your opinions on which server to use. My
> > understanding is that sendmail is pretty much the standard, but Mandrake
> > seems to prefer Postfix. Then again, for all I know, they could be the
> > same thing! 
> > 
> > Anyway, what mail server should I look into and why? I'd like to
> > eventually be able to offer IMAP for the few that want it, but mostly I
> > need POP services.
> > 
> > M$ servers need not apply...
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Ken
> > 
> > 
> > -
> > To unsubscribe, send email to majordomo@silug.org with
> > "unsubscribe silug-discuss" in the body.


-
To unsubscribe, send email to majordomo@silug.org with
"unsubscribe silug-discuss" in the body.