At 1:37 PM -0500 12/4/03, Paul List Hess imposed structure on a stream of electrons, yielding:
Hi All,
I just had an old iMac handed down to replace and improve my even much older mail server which is currently a little old Power Mac 6116 that is running SIMS (60MHz?, 700MB Drive, MacOS 9.0.4, SIMS and Retrospect Client) reliably for several years. The new machine is probably 50x faster which I don't think I care about, has a much larger hard drive which will allow me to be a lot less stingy on user mailbox sizes and keeping log files, and runs OS/X-10.2.
I was all set to downgrade the new iMac to OS/9 but it feels funny to step backwards like that without taking a pause. If you were doing it, would you downgrade the new box, keep it at OS/X (seems silly to run SIMS under classic mode), or would you bite the bullet and try to get up to speed on using the built in OS/X (Unix) mail capabilities?
Under Unix I know from distant memory that the routing is pretty nice (some sort of .aliases file which, for instance, let me direct one alias out to 5 different addresses without creating a fake POP mailbox to do the rerouting as I have to do in SIMS). But implementing the RBL's would probably be a new hassle sine I think it involves extra incantations with scripting etc. I'd also need to find instructions on how to set it up initially, figure out if there are any new security issues, and find a support community similar to this awesome list!
So, if you had a brand new OS/X box dumped on your lap for a mail server, what would you do?
Switch.
I say that as someone who has written sendmail.cf files by hand, so i am likely biased. However, you don't need that skill any more given the m4 structure that sendmail now has, and if you are running Panther, it even comes with Postfix instead anyway. DNSBL use is NOT complex these days in Sendmail or Postfix, and with the exception of the dictionary attack feature of SIMS, there's nothing you cannot do with an OSX/Postfix machine that you can do with SIMS, and a fair amount more that you can do.
Plus, whether you use an old OSX with the included sendmail, or replace that with Postfix, or get Panther and its included Postfix, you will have an open source MTA with active development going on. With SIMS we have a good MTA, but one with a handful of annoying bugs and some clear areas where improvements could be made but seem unlikely to ever actually be made. That's a sad situation, but it makes sense for Stalker from a business perspective. Unfortunately, the coming year or so is likely to see some serious advances in anti-spam methodology that are likely to be impossible to tack onto SIMS from the outside, and unless Stalker changes their minds, SIMS will be left behind.
-- Bill Cole [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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