Help with setting up a mail server

[Bill Tillman]

Message: 24
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:05:13 -0400
From: Jerry McAllister <jerrymc at msu.edu>
Subject: Re: Help with setting up a mail server
To: Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo at gmail.com>
Cc: "Aryeh M. Friedman" <aryeh.friedman at gmail.com>,
    freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
Message-ID: <20100720180513.GB46959 at gizmo.acns.msu.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 09:03:55PM +0300, Odhiambo Washington wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 4:46 PM, Aryeh M. Friedman
> <aryeh.friedman at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:33:28 -0400
> > Jerry <freebsd.user at seibercom.net> wrote:
> >
> >> On Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:26:44 -0400
> >> Aryeh M. Friedman <aryeh.friedman at gmail.com> articulated:
> >>
> >> > I am a consultant and was retained by my client to setup qmail or
> >> > exim on a VPS running 8.0-STABLE (i386). After setting up the DNS
> >> > (A record and MX record) we have been unable to send or receive
> >> > mail. The client has/had a working script for installing qmail on
> >> > 7.1-STABLE but it seems to not work on 8.0-STABLE. They are using
> >> > the same VPS provider who this 7.1-STABLE install script worked
> >> > under. I have tried everything I can think of to make it work
> >> > including asking obvious questions on -questions at .
> >> >
> >> > I informed the client that the task is likely beyond me capabilities
> >> > but I would help recruit someone who would be able to do it at a
> >> > reasonable fee paid to them (I am acting as a no cost middle man on
> >> > this [I am helping the client for free since I was unable to get it
> >> > done]).
> >> >
> >> > Please send any ideas and/or offers to do the job
> >>
> >> I would seriously suggest that you consider installing Postfix. It is
> >> in the ports tree, is well maintained and works out of the box. The
> >> Postfix forum will be glad to give you any advice you need for setting
> >> up and securing your mail server. Qmail is no longer supported by its
> >> author and can be a nightmare to maintain.
> >>
> >
> > We had also tried sendmail and couldn't get that working either so I
> > suspect it is a general config issue not a MTA one.  (I have set
> > sendmail up about 30 times in the past so I know a little bit about it)
> 
> Exim is a very good choice. Forget the Postfix suggestions. It's
> Sendmail's brother:-)

Sendmail comes from a good family.

////jerry

> 
> 
> -- 
> Best regards,
> Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
> Nairobi,KE
> +254733744121/+254722743223
> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
> "If you have nothing good to say about someone, just shut up!."
>                -- Lucky Dube
 
At the risk of starting a flame war, I think sendmail gets a bad rap. It's not been the most widely used MTA for the last few decades because it sucks. It's about personal preference.
 
Now I know this may be redundant advice but I used to run an MTA and enjoyed having the use of it and freedom to have my own mailserver at home. But alas, the spammers have ruined that for all of us and almost every ISP out there will block port 25 by default. Even if they don't block port 25 it will only be a matter of time before they detect your outgoing mail traffic and then block you so that you're forced to purchase an add-on service to run your own MTA. They will use lame excuses that you've been blacklisted because of spam. It's simply their way of making you cough up extra dough for your service. This is one of the parts of the Internet that I really hate and long for the good old days.