Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sun, 15 Mar 2015 17:04:42 +0530
From:      Manish Jain <bourne.identity@hotmail.com>
To:        User Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   The mail server situation
Message-ID:  <BLU436-SMTP9788A1C9972B6DA4E3259EF6050@phx.gbl>

next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hi,

I have been trying to set up a mail server on a new FreeBSD 10.1 (amd64) 
machine. It is turning into quite a challenge, which I am having to 
persist with simply because I had set up qmail to work nicely 9 years 
back for another company on 5.3 or (5.4).

I suppose every administrator for mail faces the following situation 
when taking up a mail server migration :

1) email user addresses are existing and have to be served via IMAP/POP 
+ SMTP as in place (except elementary re-configuration on the client). 
The server has a public, static IP bound to an MX record (or so I believe)
2) access to mail via web
3) spam control via any working plugin like spamassassin
4) optional support for ssl/tls/ipv6 (although I would frankly like all 
of these locked up in their own jails)

There are tons of HowTo's out there on the web, all suffering from 
similar symptoms :

1) Broken : it turns out that qmail is not even working on FreeBSD 10.1. 
God knows why the port was shipped in the first place
2) Very poor documentation. FreeBSD's famed handbook is a starting 
example. It begins the mail section with the presumption that the user 
does not know what is email and tries to define it in terms of 
traditional mail. (I wonder why the authors even have to presume that 
the user is acquainted with the concept of mail). Then it moves to 
sendmail configuration which begins with the presumption that the user 
is already aware of terms like CONNECT, RELAY and SKIP. As far as I am 
concerned, RELAY means giving a letter for my girl-friend to a 
go-between I trust. SKIP means hopping in the air exactly once when I 
receive a reply. (Hopping is more difficult to define, but you can try 
the dictionary)

Is there any mail server which :

a) just works with basic commandline skills like 
cd/ls/grep/sed/awk/tar/find/locate (and of course, the famous copy and 
paste)
b) the documentation for which works as it is on 10.1 amd64 without 
making too many excuses

You can try and discourage me with stuff like "Read online 
documentation". But that only opens up the discussion to many more naive 
administrators who will pound mailing lists with help questions.

-- 
Regards,

Manish Jain


---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?BLU436-SMTP9788A1C9972B6DA4E3259EF6050>