Re: Building a mail server
i'm learning exim right now. i'm going to use this as MTA along with courier-imap for POP3.
from what i know, exim should be able to handle all the things you mentioned (except that filter setup from within a MUA). but you wouldn't have to mess around with a shell account. i've heard of sieve as a kind of filtering language (heard only, i'll have to look at it myself). there's a web interface called smartsieve where you can set up your own filter rules in a browser.
i have previously tried to get qmail up and running, but it seems to be a *little* too secure for me... wasn't even able to get it send at least a single mail. so i threw the whole thing away and started with exim. this one looks much easier to manage, i have just 'finished' my concept of virtual domains/users with a mysql database (only for account->maildir/password information). since i'm going to start my own internet webserver in autumn, my plans are to automate the whole configuration (e-mail inclusive) as far as possible. also for my end users/customers.
if you're interested in some configuration details of my test server, just send me a mail...
-yves
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: "Jeffrey Hartmann" <debain@lefty.org>
An: <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 30. Juli 2003 21:37
Betreff: Building a mail server
> I run a small server that is used for myself and some friends and family to
> host email, webpages, etc.
>
> I'm looking to put a new mail server into place and after much research I'm
> even more confused than ever, and I'm looking for some advice. I've look at
> many packages, but I might be missing a few or maybe even missed that one
> package could be setup in a special way.
>
> I'm currently using sendmail, qpopper, and openwebmail. Although this setup
> works, it's lacking in some features I would like.
>
> Requirements (mostly standard stuff):
>
> 1) maildirs - I've been told that maildirs is less CPU intensive since the MUA
> doesn't have to scan through huge mailbox files. I also like that one mangled
> message isn't going to corrupt a whole mailbox. The other option I was
> thinking about was Cyrus or maybe find something that stores mail in mySQL,
> but many people seem to talk badly about 'proprietary' mail storage formats.
>
> 2) virtual domain support
> specifically I like the sendmail style virtusertable:
> bob@domain.com: user1
> @domain.com: user2
>
> 3) imap - Cyrus or Courier seem to be the current top contenders.
>
> 4) webmail - I like openwebmail, but it only does mbox mail spools.
> Squirrelmail seems to be the most popular here.
>
> 5) smtp auth - Sendmail had a patch/configuration option for this.
> pop-before-smtp is an option, however I like the smtp auth method better.
> It'd be nice if I could have everything behind SSL and still have it
> compatible with the popular windows MUAs.
>
> 6) pop3 - pretty standard, just needs to work.
>
>
> Now the optional requirements. These are things I would REALLY like to see,
> but I could live without. So any suggestions that could get me the closest to
> all of these is best.
>
> 1) Server based filtering, What I'm really looking for here is the ability to
> sort all my mail by domain. So maindomain.com mail would end up in INBOX/,
> but domain1.com mail would end up in INBOX/domain1.com/. This really ties to
> the IMAP, as those are the folders I would be sorting into, and I'd like the
> filtering to happen on the server so it's already filtered no matter what MUA
> I'm connecting with. It could also be used for just general mail filters like
> filters mailing lists to different folders. Right now I color code my
> messages in OE so I know what mail server it came from, but I can't seem to do
> that in IMAP.
>
> It would be nice to be able to setup the filters from the MUA, but I'm
> guessing thats going to be pretty rare or impossible to find. It wouldn't be
> too horrible to have to do it manually from a shell, as the people using this
> feature would be the more advanced users.
>
> Along this line also the POP3 server shouldn't distinguish between the
> filtered mail and just kick it all out like a normal pop3 server. (The filter
> could possibly add some X- header to signify the sorting for pop users.)
>
> 2) virtual users. Currently everyone has thier own account on the system, and
> mail is delivered according to the virtusertable. I have some family members
> that don't really know how to use a shell account, so I'd like the ability to
> not have to open that account for them. I'd rather have virtual users than
> having to take measures to lock the account. So I would still need that
> virtusertable functionallity, but it would have to be able to deliver to
> virtual accounts as well.
>
> 3) spam and virus scanning. This seems pretty trivial to implement. Mainly
> I'd like to have the spam filters, but virus scanning is a plus as well.
> SpamAssassian looks good, but I'm not sure if there are any virus scanners
> that wouldn't cost too much for a small server like this.
>
> 4) fetchmail or something like it that could run globally for all users like
> every hour and inject the messages into the maildir/IMAP. Again if I could
> filter this so messages from myisp.com went into INBOX/myisp.com/ I would be
> happy.
>
>
> At this point I know I'm going to have to change webmail systems, and I need
> to decide on an IMAP server. Not even sure what's available for a server-side
> filter, and what MTAs it's compatible with. Sendmail is the tried and true
> proven system, but from what I understand it doesn't support maildirs, which
> makes postfix look good, as postfix also seems very popular. Courier-IMAP
> seems to be popular, but I'm not sure what the difference is between that and
> Cyrus. The whole Courier mail system (mainly the MTA) doesn't seems to be
> very popular in general, and I have yet to figure that out.
>
> So can anyone give me some idea of what they run, or suggestions of what to
> use that could be configured to do a lot of this stuff? Ease of install isn't
> really an issue, as I really don't have to do that very often. Ease of use
> and maintenance is a big issue, as I don't want to have to go through a 50
> step process every time I add a new user.
>
>
> Thanks,
> Jeff
>
>
> --
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-request@lists.debian.org
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
>
Reply to: