From owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 10 13:30:05 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B46B716A404 for ; Thu, 10 May 2007 13:30:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from iaccounts@ibctech.ca) Received: from pearl.ibctech.ca (pearl.ibctech.ca [208.70.104.210]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6941113C458 for ; Thu, 10 May 2007 13:30:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from iaccounts@ibctech.ca) Received: (qmail 31701 invoked by uid 1002); 10 May 2007 13:03:23 -0000 Received: from iaccounts@ibctech.ca by pearl.ibctech.ca by uid 89 with qmail-scanner-1.22 (spamassassin: 2.64. Clear:RC:1(208.70.107.100):. Processed in 15.794599 secs); 10 May 2007 13:03:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ?192.168.1.210?) (steve@ibctech.ca@208.70.107.100) by pearl.ibctech.ca with (DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA encrypted) SMTP; 10 May 2007 13:03:07 -0000 Message-ID: <4643180F.1000805@ibctech.ca> Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 09:03:11 -0400 From: Steve Bertrand User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 (Windows/20070326) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Richard McNeilly References: <4641D2EB.5070909@grenadianone.com> In-Reply-To: <4641D2EB.5070909@grenadianone.com> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.95.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Email server recommendation X-BeenThere: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Internet Services Providers List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 13:30:05 -0000 Richard McNeilly wrote: > I am trying to plan a ISP deployment using FreeBSD. I am more familiar > with Linux but during my research, it's been pointed out that FreeBSD is > the more stable and reliable choice for an ISP. Especially as an email > server. > > What is the best way to manage the addition of new users to the email > server? local users or is there a database solution. Also is there a > software package available to easily administer email accounts or does > it all have to be done with custom scripts. > > I would welcome any suggestions of anecdotes of experience. We use a few of these: http://mail-toaster.org/ ...with two clustered Barracuda 400's in front of them. We have all filtering turned off on the mail servers themselves. However, if you are just starting out, you could use the filtering on the servers, and then upgrade to a different solution as revenue increases. With a couple days worth of code writing, we have a single interface that allows us to do pretty much anything. Support: - one click user password retrieving/changing - RADIUS user management - managing any/all domains and/or user(s) - one click to enter any user webmail (to delete large messages for those on dial-up) Administration: - adding domains/users - one click user management/domain management - client level domain management access (web) We have ~10,000 email accounts, and we process very close to 1 million emails per day. We started out using Unix accounts and mailboxes, but that quickly got too cumbersome to manage across an ever increasing number of domains and aliases. With this setup, the front line support staff can pretty much do anything regarding our users/domains safely, that I would have to do myself before. OT, I would also recommend djbdns with VegaDNS frontend. This combination is extremely easy to get up and running, especially after done once. It is an exceptionally fast server, and with the web front-end, makes it a cake-walk to manage domains. This too has client level domain DNS management (per-domain, group or user delegation). Regards, Steve