mail server setup questions

[DAve]

Bill Vermillion wrote:
> In the last exciting episode of the
> freebsd-questions-request at freebsd.org saga on Thu, Sep 06, 2007 at
> 06:27 , freebsd-questions-request at freebsd.org as heard to say:
> 
>> Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2007 11:37:11 +1000
>> From: Norberto Meijome <freebsd at meijome.net>
>> Subject: Re: mail server setup questions
>> To: "Bob Johnson" <fbsdlists at gmail.com>
>> Cc: Andrey Shuvikov <mr.hyro at gmail.com>, freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> 
>> On Wed, 5 Sep 2007 16:52:56 -0400
>> "Bob Johnson" <fbsdlists at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>> In case I haven't made myself clear, I despise Qmail with a
>>> passion. I suppose it is suitable for people who like puzzles
>>> (as in "What patches do I need to make this do something
>>> useful?" or "What third-party tool do I need to make sense
>>> out of these awful log files?") and who don't mind inflicting
>>> lots of unnecessary secondary spam on the rest of the world.
>>> Yes, I know there are _supposed_ to be patches that fix that
>>> problem, but (a) the one I've seen in action doesn't work very
>>> well, and (b) you shouldn't need to apply third-party patches
>>> to your mail server to make it do what it is supposed to do in
>>> the first place.
> 
>> I second all these points. I think it's probably better to use
>> sendmail than qmail. Sendmail at least supports most (all?)
>> SMTP / antispam related features, it is well documented ,
>> and configurable to the extreme (with the caveat that its
>> configuration may be a bit daunting to the un-initiated :D).
>>
>> I just realised that qmail appears over and over in Linux
>> distros, or at least on linux servers i've had to suffer... not
>> sure the relationship there (in design / philosophy...)... and I
>> am really NOT wanting to start a flame war. Just a thought that
>> crossed my mind as I was reading this thread.
> 
>> Best,
>> B
> 
> I've been using sendmail for years, once it got stable, and I moved
> from Smail.  This was on a SysV.3 from Esix.
> 
> However one day I decided to see what all the hoopla over qmail
> was about.  So I went into the ports and ran make.
> 
> Much to my suprise, qmail installed 6 separate accounts in the
> pasword file.  This was just with a make and NOT make install.
> 
> That at the very least is very rude behaviour. And another problem
> with qmail from what I've read is that if you send mail to
> several people on the same server, instead of doing what all
> other MTA's do - and send ONE mail with all addresses, qmail
> will generate a separate email for each user - putting un-needed
> loads on your server and the recipients machine.
> 
> And the last time the qmail tar file that you get when you run
> make has been changed was March 4, 2001.  Anyone who even thinks
> that a piece of software that it 6 years old has no flaws had best
> re-think this.  The last patches were in 2003.

Don't wonder if qmail has flaws, go to CERT.org and search first for 
Sendmail, then Postfix, then Exim, then qmail. To say "Anyone who even 
thinks that a piece of software that it 6 years old has no flaws had 
best re-think this.", is simply FUD.

> 
> ISTR that I heard DJB speak at a Usenix conference many years ago
> and I was less than impressed with his "I'm better than any of
> you" attitude.
> 
> Many seem to share that feeling - so consider me prejudiced.

We have run qmail for several years on FreeBSD quite well with few 
problems, none of which where related to the software, it's design, it's 
configuration, always it was Clam or SpamAssassin binding things up. It 
is stable, fast, secure, and provides abilities other MTAs do not. It is 
our first choice for a toaster or a mail list server.

We use Sendmail on our gateways for it's excellent milter support and 
versatile configuration. It has more knobs than a recording studio.

If we had a client with just a few domains and the need for their own 
MTA, we would install Postfix for it's ease of use. It's rock solid and 
easy to remember when you come back to it six months later.

"If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail"

DAve


-- 
Three years now I've asked Google why they don't have a
logo change for Memorial Day. Why do they choose to do logos
for other non-international holidays, but nothing for
Veterans?

Maybe they forgot who made that choice possible.