Hmm.. this is all getting rather complicated for little me. Thanks very much for all your help but I'm coming to the conclusion that I'll probably have to use a commercial product.
Well, do whatever works for you. But it has been my experience that while some of this stuff can be difficult to setup, once you get it working you'll have a far better understanding of how it works, and you'll be much more qualified to maintain it.
True. But the question is, will I *ever* understand it without spending more time than I would like to? I've only really just got into Linux and this isn't the most trivial of things to get working even with your excellent setup guide :)
Bare in mind that I'm used to using products like MDaemon which installs in about 10 minutes and tend to work reliably for years. I was just trying to save myself the cash as I need a mail server for only a handful of people.
As my colleague always says "Linux is only free if your time has no value"
That's a pretty loaded statement. I strongly disagree, but will refrain from engaging it on this list.
I don't agree either to be honest and I shouldn't have said it - but I do think there's a *little* truth in it. Linux solutions to tend to take a lot more time to get working than the commerical ones (unless you're unlucky with the commercial products) and if your time would be better spent doing something else, then going with a 'free' solution doesn't always end up being 'free'.
Getting filtering working with the patches I described is trivial. And you can bypass them if are ok with manually configuring .qmail files for any user that wants filtering. I only use the patches because I want to use qmailadmin with the spam detection scheme.
Bare in mind that before last week - I've never patched or installed anything in my life :)
Maybe as I'll only have about 5 users, the vpopmail part of the install is more hassle than it's worth and I might have an easier time if I create 'normal' linux users and configure things with .qmail files like I used to on my old box (which someone else set up for me). Will that approach still work on a ShuppToaster(tm) or does the vpopmail stuff mangle the configuration too much? I only really *need* the smtp-auth, SpamAssassin, Simscan/clamav and webmail support because I'm not really going to be dealing with more than a few users.
I *want* a linux install to work, but it scares me how much patching needs to be done to get VERY basic features into qmail that you'd think a lot of people would need (eg smtp-auth).
I REALLY wish someone made a Qmail Toaster distribution that has all the common stuff already installed to start with such that almost nobody will need to patch it. That way you would effectively have a 'standard' install that was very well supported and not different because everyone's used a different distribution/patches etc. I'd pay for it.
maildrop is pretty powerful, and well documented. My recommendation is to hold out on a commercial product, and read more docs.
I'll take your advice and I'll persevere a little longer with qmail, but it might have to wait until the weekend as looking at the screen all day is doing my head in :)
Nick...
