Help with setting up a mail server

[Odhiambo Washington]

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 11:50 PM, Jerry <freebsd.user at seibercom.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:03:55 +0300
> Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo at gmail.com> articulated:
>
>
>> 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:-)
>
> At least Postfix is fully RFC compliant, as opposed to Exim.
>
> SEE: RFC 2034 (SMTP enhanced status codes), RFC 3461-4 (delivery status
> notifications), RFC 1652 (8-bit MIME including 8->7bit conversion)
> among others.

I doubt anyone makes a choice on an MTA (or any other software) based
on it's RFC-compliance.
In my experience, it's normally boils down to:

1. It has the features that I want
2. I can swim with it in times of toruble

-- 
Best regards,
Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
Nairobi,KE
+254733744121/+254722743223
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