On Tue, August 28, 2007 11:29 am, Jasper Bryant-Greene wrote: > On Aug 28, 2007 10:38:52, Steve Holdoway wrote: >> On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:56:06 +1200 >> Jasper Bryant-Greene <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> > Postfix - in my experience faster and easier to configure, with a >> better >> > security track record. >> B*ll*cks. The only reason that sendmail could be less secure is because >> the configurer didn't know what they were doing. Same as all the bad >> press that php gets. Blame the workman, not the tools.
When I chose an MTA quite a few years ago sendmail was on the tail end of some bad press on security. Those problems had probably been fixed by the time I made the choice, but doubts lingered. Sendmail was designed to do everything mail related, over tcp/ip and using the internet rfc's but also for many other esoteric email systems - and it is pretty sprawling as a result. Some distros had it configured badly out of the box and the configs are hardly easy to set up. Those things put me off big time. I decided at the time that postfix was for me as it had some features I wanted, had a good security, and excellent support via its mailing list. It also had some good features for dialup users, which I was at the time. It is very easy to configure and the setup files are quite logical and well commented. I have never regretted the choice and still use it now. I unreservedly recommend it as a good way to get into running your own mail server. Horses for courses, if you understand and know how to configure sendmail properly, it is probably a good choice. qmail seems to be just different by design, and the attitude of the developer has put many people (including me) off. The other choice that hasn't been mentioned in the thread is exim, which is the debian default IIRC. I haven't really used it, but it has its adherents. I have tried all the popular open source imap servers and conclude: 1. Uni of Washington IMAP - OK but uses mbox, and chokes on large mailboxes. Performance therefore poor. Can't recommend. 2. cyrus - uses its own mail storage format and a bit esoteric to configure, particularly with procmail delivery. Resource hungry. 3. courier - uses popular maildir format, with its own indexing files on top. Reasonable performer. Easy to integrate with procmail. 4. dovecot - also uses maildir. Uses less resources than courier, ideal if you are using it on lower powered hardware (such as many cobbled together home mail servers). Some scripts exist on the web to convert the indexes from courier to dovecot. Again they are personal views, backed by my own experiences and no one elses. Flame wars are unneccessary. -- Nick Rout
