On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 10:19:12 +1200 Jim Cheetham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 06/09/07, Steve Holdoway <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The last problem with sendmail reported for 8.13.8, over a year ago so I > > think your comments could be considered overly critical, given the volumes > > of email it processes, it's one of the biggest ( some say the biggest - > > http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6849 ) targets. > > > > This compares well with postfix, qmail, exim and far better than exchange. > > Sendmail: very capable, but with the most disgusting configuration > I've ever ever seen. Yes, I've written functional cf files from > scratch, before all that macro rubbish :-) Blimey! I must have been using m4 for over 15 years... how old's sendmail now? > > qmail: horribly fast, with the second-most disgusting configuration > I've ever seen. Plus is has no "features" for extension, without > hacking source code that has no understandable license. Qmail is completely unable to compete with sendmail in extremely busy environments ( like monday morning in the US (: ) because sendmail runs the mta and lda asynchronously, allowing for it to ride over those really busy periods and then catch up with dumping into client mailboxes when everything dies down. Qmail is a single pipeline from end to end. Also, there is *no* significant speed difference between the two. Exchange on the other hand is about an order of magnitude slower than both. Trust me on this, I've done a *lot* of benchmarking... > > postfix: does pretty much everything, as long as you find out what > unexpected config line to use. Very reliable, seems to be the MTA of > popular choice at the moment. I think it depends on your needs. Looking at that survey, it seems that Sendmail is still way out in front. Given that it doesn't come as a default install for anything I know of ( not even *BSD! ) that sort of does say something. Mind you, ihug are using exim, but I'm not sure what that says! I do want to get to grips with postfix, as it ( allegedly ) offers a milter interface. > > exim: the best config file of any I've seen so far - mostly because it > is read top-to-bottom in a completely predictable order. Makes growing > new features very safe, and is also very extensible. Has an odd habit > of maintaining a large "frozen" mail queue, which I find annoying to > manage - basically you can't just ignore it for large periods of time. Never tried it. I've got one server that generates a 2GB mail which it fails to send whenever some cronjob fails. > > exchange: not an MTA. Not sufficiently standards compliant. Seems to > work for "most" uses. Not extensible without "product". > > Steve, you won't be "throwing away learning" if you learn a new MTA, > you'll be "learning something new" :-) even if it is a real > considered-plus-actual-experiences reason to continue using sendmail > ... Gets difficult at my age (: I would if I had the time is probably the most honest answer. > > BTW, if you're interested in hacking email and you don't have a > terribly flexible MTA in place, look at Anubis - it's an SMTP proxy > that can provide TLS and authentication, even if your main MTA can't. I will. > > -jim Thanks for the input. Hopefully I'll get some spare time to act on your suggestions. Cheers, Steve.
