[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: MTA



Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.:
> In <[🔎] 20090706212028.GD31728@wasteland.homelinux.net>, Jochen Schulz wrote:
>> 
>> I would avoid Sendmail since it is *really* old and hard to configure.
> 
> Sendmail gets more modern all the time, but m4 is quite the beast for 
> configuration files.  Still, if you learn it you'll be an aid to any project 
> still using autoconf.

I have no trouble believing that. :)

>> Popcon data
>> shows 19% usage of Postfix and 69% of Exim which appears to support this
>> theory.
> 
> Popcon data is going to biased in favor of Exim as many users will get it by 
> default when cron or anacron is installed.

ACK, that's why I said Postfix is picked by the majority of users
consciously picking an alternative. Of course, we don't know how many
people consciously stay with Exim.

> I've found exim4 to be quite easy to configure, but not entirely intuitive.  
> The documentation is a required read if you need to do anything not handled 
> by the debconf setup.  (e.g. tying into a IMAPd or SPAM/malware scans at 
> delivery or SMTP time)

ACK again. It's been a while since I last looked into it, but my
impression was that you have to read and understand the whole spec.txt
(which introduces quite a bit of Exim-specific terminology) to be able
to do anything. That's not necessarily a bad thing and I am sure Exim is
a good choice in many setups. I just found that Postfix makes it easier
to configure only the aspects you are interested in.

To the OP: perhaps it would be better if you could say what exactly you
are trying to do. Then people could comment on their experience with
similar setups.

My experience with Postfix:

- "satellite system" as configured by debconf: a no-brainer with either
  Postfix or Exim.

- mail relay for home network. Not that easy if you want sender
  dependent relay hosts and SMTP authentication, but there are good
  howtos out there.

- MX for a small domain with only a few users, but including virtual
  domain hosting, spam filtering, database backend and IMAP (dovecot)
  integration. You have to know what you are doing but then it is
  surprisingly easy.

I think once you grok the whole lookup table concept and Postfix' main
confiuration variables (relay_domains, mydestination, *_restrictions
etc.) you can easily do anything you can expect of an MTA.

J.
-- 
Every day in every way I am getting better and better.
[Agree]   [Disagree]
                 <http://www.slowlydownward.com/NODATA/data_enter2.html>

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature


Reply to: