From owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jul 21 16:05:19 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5774137B401 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 2003 16:05:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from relay.transip.nl (relay.transip.nl [80.69.66.68]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 60F3043F3F for ; Mon, 21 Jul 2003 16:05:18 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from freebsd@walter.transip.nl) Received: from blue.calx.nl (blue.calx.nl [213.84.201.224]) by relay.transip.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7F9AC30B for ; Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:05:15 +0200 (CEST) Received: by blue.calx.nl (Postfix, from userid 1000) id B0A98A934; Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:05:15 +0200 (CEST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by blue.calx.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id ABE60A931 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:05:15 +0200 (CEST) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:05:15 +0200 (CEST) From: Walter Hop Sender: walter@blue.calx.nl To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20030722000726.X21161@blue.calx.nl> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: Re: Ideal mail server: qmail or postfix X-BeenThere: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Internet Services Providers List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 23:05:19 -0000 [in reply to James Godwin , 21/07/03] > I was wondering what mail servers fellow ISP are running. I can't > decide between postfix or qmail. The last two years, we have used Postfix exclusively, so this message is biased. :) We made the switch from Sendmail mainly for security reasons, although qmail has the same strong points. We chose for Postfix because it seemed to have a better "future". Postfix configuration is a heaven and still is flexible enough for all our scenarios; I've heard that some advanced tasks cannot be accomplished but all our needs were met. Routing, access controls, spam filtering, virus scanning is flexible enough. It supports Sendmailish things such as .forward files and procmail out of the box; there are separate tools for qmail to do this. A chroot setup is easy. IPv6 support works out of the box with the FreeBSD port. >From a system administrator's perspective, Postfix' management tools for troubleshooting and maintaining its databases are clear and complete, and the log and error messages are very clear. Upgrading via portupgrade has never broken our setup, even across major versions. We use the FreeBSD port in combination with amavisd and SpamAssassin (setup of these ports is a no-brainer and their performance is good!) We just keep mail for regular useraccounts in /var/mail. If you have large numbers of users, a more exotic setup may be interesting; I don't know which one of the two is the best in such a situation. cheers, walter