Re: Sendmail vs. Postfix vs. ?

[Travis Owens <openbook@linuxmds.com>]

Actually, qmail is a very, very good SMTP program that's very small,
fast and extremely secure (it's got a standing reward for anyone that
can hack it and it's not been hacked for more than 5 years) However,
it's licensing give people that only want the FREE as in
"no-one-will-ever-have-the-right-to-restrict-us-from-doing-anything-that-us-ever-want-to-do-with-it" don't like it, since the creator decided to release it, and it's code, but didn't release it under the GPL or a derivative thereof.

Also, it's been my experience (only recently, mainly due to laziness)
that Postfix is much easier to configure, especially for things like
spam prevention.

HTH,
Travis


On Fri, 2004-09-03 at 15:04, Ken Keefe wrote:
> 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
> > > 
> > > 
> > > -
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> 
> 
> -
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-- 
Travis Owens <openbook@linuxmds.com>


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