From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Sep 5 21:29:29 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AAE4916A417 for ; Wed, 5 Sep 2007 21:29:29 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from perrin@apotheon.com) Received: from outbound-mail-31.bluehost.com (outbound-mail-31.bluehost.com [69.89.18.151]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 7C23F13C48A for ; Wed, 5 Sep 2007 21:29:29 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from perrin@apotheon.com) Received: (qmail 24257 invoked by uid 0); 5 Sep 2007 21:29:29 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO box183.bluehost.com) (69.89.25.183) by mailproxy2.bluehost.com with SMTP; 5 Sep 2007 21:29:29 -0000 Received: from c-24-9-123-251.hsd1.co.comcast.net ([24.9.123.251] helo=demeter.hydra) by box183.bluehost.com with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.66) (envelope-from ) id 1IT2RE-0000N1-Gp for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Wed, 05 Sep 2007 15:29:28 -0600 Received: from demeter.hydra (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by demeter.hydra (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id l84Nn3w7090542 for ; Tue, 4 Sep 2007 17:49:03 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from perrin@apotheon.com) Received: (from ren@localhost) by demeter.hydra (8.13.6/8.13.6/Submit) id l84Nn2lk090541 for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Tue, 4 Sep 2007 17:49:02 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from perrin@apotheon.com) X-Authentication-Warning: demeter.hydra: ren set sender to perrin@apotheon.com using -f Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 17:49:02 -0600 From: Chad Perrin To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20070904234902.GC90403@demeter.hydra> Mail-Followup-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <80f4f2b20709041503g3b3f85d1oa6a09b110ac31d7b@mail.gmail.com> <20070905155804.GE25281@ayvali.org> <24393ae80709051205j211b7ae4p54ea2f9d94b3c5e3@mail.gmail.com> <54db43990709051352g2e5f8e14xc2e04b032f7efc76@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <54db43990709051352g2e5f8e14xc2e04b032f7efc76@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i X-Identified-User: {737:box183.bluehost.com:apotheon:apotheon.net} {sentby:bopbeforesmtp 24.9.123.251 authed with apotheon.com} X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - box183.bluehost.com X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - freebsd.org X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [737 12] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - apotheon.com Subject: Re: mail server setup questions X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2007 21:29:29 -0000 On Wed, Sep 05, 2007 at 04:52:56PM -0400, Bob Johnson wrote: > On 9/5/07, Andrey Shuvikov wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I'm trying to set up a home mailserver with imap/web access. But I was > > going to use exim. Several people mentioned postfix here, but nobody > > named exim. Is it a matter of personal preference or is exim not > > suitable for this task? Exim is as suited for the task as Postfix and Sendmail. All three are in roughly the same class of mail transfer agent, and are roughly interchangeable in terms of functionality. Sendmail is very old-school Unix in its design philosophy, from what I've seen. Postfix is pretty easy to wrap your head around and is pretty light on resources when well-configured. Exim -- well, I suspect it has some excellent qualities to recommend it, but my personal experience is that it's a severe pain in my fourth point of contact to configure. Exim is the default MTA for Debian, and while I was using Debian I ended up swapping out Exim for Postfix on every install after I finally got tired of dealing with Exim's configuration complexities and caveats. Your mileage may vary. > > Whatever you do, please don't use Qmail. I don't want any more > blowback spam than I already get. I'm not a huge fan of Qmail, either. I not only try to avoid it myself, but wish others would do so as well. > > 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. Basically, Qmail seems to have taken the philosophy of removing everything non-basic to make Qmail "secure" and "simple" by default. Unfortunately, as you hinted, this means Qmail requires a bunch of third-party add-ons, tools, plugins, and extensions to do anything useful, and those extras are not subject to the same standards of simplicity and security as Qmail itself. The end result is that Qmail servers tend to end up badly unsecured and something of a nightmare to maintain -- or, at least, that's what I've seen. It's also not really open source software, or wasn't last I checked, anyway. For all I know, all my experience with Qmail (and thus my knowledge of it) may be obsolete. My memory of Qmail is somewhat reinforced by this, however: http://cr.yp.to/qmail/dist.html This, however, makes it clear that you should (in the US) be able to get away with passing around patches all you like: http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html . . . which has nothing to do with whether it's "open source", really. -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] Amazon.com interview candidate: "When C++ is your hammer, everything starts to look like your thumb."