Drake Mobius wrote:
Virtual domains are a big concern to me..I may be brand new at this but I'm stuck with the task and I need an enterprise-size mail server. cpanel: http://www.cpanel.net/ is used for site config and mgmt plesk: server mgmt for web hosting. think webmin, but bigger.
Hm, that seems like tools needed by/suited to ISPs. That's totally different from what I need.
I think my greatest hate of exim-config thus far has actually been my lack of experience with DEBCONF, and thus all the debconf replacements in the otherwise easy to read config.
yeah
It should also be noted that the multi-file config is more like "The Debian Way" tm As you can see with apache, includes of directories of files is easier for dropping in a new section and version managing an existing config. I do this also!
Yes, such a way to configure things has great advantages when you want to do things automatically. The problem is that automatical things tend not to be suited that much for human intervention, so it becomes difficult to find a way allowing for both, manual configuration and automated. The automated configuration introduces additional learning overhead when humans want to interfere --- and be it just to get what they want --- and exim-config is a nice example of the problems arising from that.
But still, when questions come up like 'How do I configure a mail server/my mail to have virus scanning and SPAM checking?', they are probably not being asked by ISPs who need flexibility but by users/admins who just want what they ask for and who will (want to) end up with a static and reliable setup for their mail system. The autoconfig is imho not suited for that. Maybe it will include options to set these things up at a later stage, but that will still leave users alone in case something fails. That is what Windoze does, except that it leaves them alone long before ... If they know what they do, they are able to help themselfes :)
GH