|> Can anyone tell me what is the best
|> - mail server
sendmail is the ubiquitous, do-everything MTA. However, if the
out-of-the-box config doesn't work, tweaking it can be difficult. 800-page
books have been written on sendmail. I don't recommend it unless you have a
very basic config (I did, it never broke, and I was lucky) or you are an
experienced system administrator.
a friend of mine highly recommends the qmail MTA; he says it's far easier
to cope with (and he's a sysadmin).
unless, of course, you mean a POP or IMAP server, in which case I can't
help.
|> - mail user Agent
Depends on what you need to do and the specs of your machine.
MH/EXMH -- does everything, nice GUI, but won't run well on a very slow
machine due to its tcl/tk interface. also, really customising it requires
you to learn the MH shell commands which, although powerful, are not
superintuitive. It does allow you to download from multiple accounts
(including POP but not IMAP) and filter it using MH's slocal filtering.
However, the GUI itself is reasonably customisable, nicely done, and quite
powerful, including integrated PGP 2.6.2/2.6.3i support (development seems
to have stalled at 2.0.2. I'm no longer on the exmh mailing list,
unfortunately; I can't provide more specific information.)
Exmh was my mailer of choice on Linux for a long time, and I do recommend
it. The only thing I had trouble with was sending from multiple accounts
(fetching was easy). It didn't provide a way to do this, other than a
manual hacking of the From: line.
Pine -- the best and easiest terminal based mailer. fairly quick and easy,
with moderate power, but I've found it inadequate for handling large
quantities of mail.
Emacs -- includes mh-e and another Emacs mailreader I can't remember at the
moment. Good if you're an Emacs fan.
Netscape -- wellll.... gotta include it. It does work, it's more intutitive
than most UNIX mail programs, and is a good choice if you or your users are
migrating from a Windows environment, as the features and interface will be
familiar. It provides a decent, but not exceptional, feature set,
especially in the later (4.x) versions.
There are lots of others too. In order to really recommend something, I'd
have to know more specifics about what you needed to do. Mail programs are
not one-size-fits-all. A novice user doesn't need or want the same feature
set that a heavy e-mail user will need, and a program providing the simple
interface a novice will find comfortable will be too restricting for the
expert. Plus, there's the considerations of your machine and mail transport
protocols.
|> - mail fetcher
If you're using a mailer without direct POP3 support, fetchmail has been
recommended. Some mailers include direct POP3 support, such as MH/EXMH
(requires a bit of tweaking--and exmh's FAQ on it actually tells you to use
fetchmail, which doesn't need to be done) and Netscape. Pine sort of has
POP3 capability, but it's basically a hack of its IMAP4 features, and are
not elegant, although ease of use has improved in Pine 4.x.
If you are receiving mail directly on your machine via SMTP, no separate
fetcher is required I _think_. (Don't quote me on this. I've always used
POP3 on my own machine.)
|> - mail sender ?
Your MTA handles this.
Alexis
-*- Alexis Rosoff -*- ICQ# 6689686 -*- http://www.li.net/~alexis
Random fortune:
If a jury in a criminal trial stays out for more than twenty-four hours, it
is certain to vote acquittal, save in those instances where it votes
guilty.
-- Joseph C. Goulden
