Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 19:53:19 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: Chris Phillips <chris@selkie.org> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Any mail server software that could run on FreeBSD? Message-ID: <15082.5247.995307.637295@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <27442979@toto.iv>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Chris Phillips <chris@selkie.org> types: > With the amount of sendmail users out there, I would be surprised if this > didn't make new users or those who have never used postfix before shy away > from NetBSD. I'm very much under the opinion that when you have the size > of market share that sendmail does, there would be better help > resources. I know for a fact that there is a ton of documentation on > sendmail and of course the O'Reilly book. Last time I checked there were > no such books on exim, postfix or qmail. Maybe that has changed, but You haven't looked recently, have you? The Exim book from O'Reilly is due out this month. Sams has books out on both qmail and postfix. The books have arrived in the same order as the mailers became available. qmail doesn't *need* tons of documentation. You don't have a config file full of strange one-character variables and a processing model designed to deal with the different mail systems of the four different networks that UCB was running when it was written. Question: What does dollar-splat do. Answer: It depends on whether you're asking Eric Allman or Larry Wall. > having a book published by O'Reilly on a piece of software is usually a > pretty good indication that it is a widely used piece of software. Yup. Personally, I'd rather have software that's designed to be stable, robust and fast than software that's designed to win popularity contests. That's why I run FreeBSD. > > Agreed, though I suspect that, of those who have used both postfix > > and sendmail, few would call sendmail configuration easier including > > some who use sendmail. (FWIW, I prefer postfix, but still use sendmail > > on many systems because it works and "it ain't broke".) > I'm not sure I would agree with you. Jordan is nice enough to setup a > nicely configured sendmail with every default install. Editing two > seperate files is not what I would call hard. One file you insert the > hostname to which the server is supposed to route mail and the second you > map the mail. I'm not sure it could get much easier. Downloading, > untar'ing, configuring, compiling the source and then configuring the > actual mailer would probably be a much more daunting task for a new user, > as this person stated he is if my memory serves me correctly. Fortunately, the same person who provides sendmail pre-configured for most users also provided a system for downloading, patching, configuring and installing such software. Maybe you've heard of the FreeBSD ports system? The maintainer of the qmail port even provides hooks to disable sendmail and enable qmail. > > It is certainly the most widely used, but popularity is not a measure > > of quality. Vox populi is a terribly common argument that is almost > > always invalid. Even in US presidential elections. :-) > When was the last time you used sendmail, or better yet, have you ever > used it to the point where it did everything you wanted it to? I'm not > sure how you can determine the quality of the software as anything less > than the others. It's secure and far more robust than any of the other > mailers. I suggest running it for a while. I don't think you would > disagree with me after that time. Running several thousand virtual > mailing on the others would be completely out of the question. I ran sendmail systems from '84 through '98, doing everything from uucp leaf nodes to handling campus mail at UCB. The continuing security problems convinced me to change to qmail, as it was the only alternative that seemed to solve the problems sendmail had. I haven't had to deal with any high volume mail servers with it, but it's been every bit as robust for me as sendmail was. People running high volume servers with qmail all seem quite happy with it. > It may not be for the faint of heart, but it is for high-volume servers > and it is the easiest out of the box solution. From what you've said, configuring qmail "out of the box" is easier than configuring sendmail as provided by jordan. qmail has the advantage of being installed *after* the system is configured, so it can stuff your host name into the appropriate places in the config files. If you want to change the behavior in some nontrivial way - well, sendmail is a disaster. As for high-volume servers, I'd say FreeBSD.org qualifies, and it's certainly run by people who should know sendmail well. They probably know postfix equally well, as that's what they run. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?15082.5247.995307.637295>