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Posted
by
Cliff
from the in-rain-sleet-snow-or-shine dept.
gempabumi asks: "I'm in the process of setting up a production server and I need to decide on an MTA. The main function of the MTA will be to run Mailman mailing lists. Of sendmail, Postfix, exim, and qmail, which MTA do you recommend? What are the strengths/weaknesses of each?"
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qmail one of the fastest MTAs around for outgoing email, especially mailing lists. If you really want to blast out copies, check out the big-concurrency patch, which allow you to send to more than 250 recipients simultaneously. It is also generally considered to be one of if not the most secure MTA.
I looked into both of these awhile ago. for an interesting read check out qmail's frontpage. It describes a contest that qmail had that offered an award to anyone that could find a vulnerability in qmail.. that money has still not been claimed. I also like qmail for its ease of handling virtual domains/users. (Check out www.inter8.com for their qmailadmin package.. really good for v domains)
surfshot.com
Qmail is a very good piece of software, secure, efficient, fast and with many add-ons available. The main problem I've had with it is the documentation, which is somewhat missing.
The software is really modular, with a daemon to handle every task, you can really tailor it to your needs. Spam blocking, virtual hosting and more are done with modules. One of the results of this is that you have to look at many places for documentation and these many docs often contradict themselves.
There's a howto of correct quality, but if you go a bit further than standard setup (I tried to setup vmailmgr for virtualhosting) you're bust!
I also urge you to set it up on a debian distro, because some stuff like user accounts is already configured.
Quentin
I use Debian on my machine [dyndns.org] and have exim as my MTA. It configures in about 15 seconds from the.deb, complete with MAPS RBL support. Its extremely fast and reliable.
First off, *do not use mailman*. This is easily the worst mailing list software you can find. It mails passwords, clear text, monthly. I think gnu mailmain is even two steps worse than majordomo, which is hard to complish.
Qmail is fast, efficient, easy to configure (the config files make sense) and there is a huge amount of support.
Qmail has been tight for years; the code hasn't changed in a long time. The only problem with that is the documentation is out of date. I heard rumours of a qmail 1.04 to fix the documentation.
After you choose qmail, I recommend ezmlm for mailing lists.
The configuration that always comes through for me is:
qmail+vpopmail+ezmlm
Make sure all of your domains are vpopmail virtuals.
Also, if you are affraid to get into the hardcore configuration right away, start with qmailadmin. It supports all the ezmlm stuff, so you can use the gui right away. You'll start running into limitations, but you will have lots of examples to use from that point.
btw, I have unsubscrbed from mailing lists because they use mailman.
I'm very satisfied with Postfix as MTA. Used Postfix at my former employee. On a lowly pentium 133 and 48 MB RAM and RedHat 6.1 it relayed approx. 1 GB data each working day which was about 25.000-30.000 messages a day. This without any downtime. The utilization hardly topped 0.1. Very secure and very easy to configure. The mailing-list is also very responsive. Qmail (no experience) also sounds like a good alternative.
> First off, *do not use mailman*. This is easily the worst mailing list software you can find. It mails passwords, clear text, monthly. I think gnu mailmain is even two steps
worse than majordomo, which is hard to complish.
Hardly. Mailman is lightyears ahead of majordomo. If you don't want the passwords mailed every month simply disable it with mailman's very easy to use admin tools.
D'oh! Gotta love Slashdot messing up my links... Anyway here's the correct version of my post:
Even though I personally haven't really compared any MTAs, you might want to check out this comparison table [linuxcare.com] which has users' ratings and comments for exim, postfix, qmail, sendmail, etc
QMail is modular in its functionnality principle. That doesn't mean it's elegant. Read the source, go look after the non-existing comments. Try to add functionnality to it without losing your sanity.
If it works for you. Then QMail is your choice of MTA. If not, then there's (in my opinion) a better documented, more elegant and faster evolving MTA. It's called Postfix.
(I'm working at a major ISP, and we've been using both QMail and Postfix for years. I tend to prefer Postfix, but your mileage may vary). --
Yes.. of course.. everybody loves smashing sendmail.. but it REALLY has it strong parts i've yet to see in other mail clients:
- sasl. need to say more ?
- thanks to sasl: smtp-auth (with cram-md5, etc;)
- starttls support
those features are a MUST for anyone who has roaming clients.... together with some good mail-client (like mulberry) and cyrus imap server,
they make a perfect combination...
smtp-auth ist SO much better than those pop-relay patches.... esp. when used with cram-md5 passwords;)
(I don't mind someone sniffing my e-mail.... but
I DO mind sniffing my passwords;)
First, I would avoid sendmail just because it can
be a pain to configure and it has a rep for being
a big ass security hole(TM). Debian comes with
exim so I sometime use it when I don't have time
for either qmail or postfix. If I am setting up
a stand-alone system that isn't gonna be watched
over very closely I usually install qmail because
I have no doubt that it is the most secure out
of the box. Problem is that the author has this
stupid license that pretty much requires that you
compile/configure by hand. I'm spoiled from apt
and hate to do that anymore. On most machines I
choose postfix because it is very modular and
secure, seems to perform well, and it easy as heck
to chroot(). On Debian you just apt-get install
postfix and then edit master.cf and main.cf.
I've set up at least a dozen qmail servers: small ones, big ones, red ones, blue ones...
Sendmail's a whore, and that's really the only other Linux MTA I've used. I've heard good things about Postfix but seriously I haven't found a single thing wrong with qmail [qmail.org]:
Jesus I have a lot more respect to the link crazy posts out there.:-)
At any rate -- I've run it for years now and never had a problem. The servers just work. We've used an alias system and serialmail to allow branch offices to pick up mail for their local users without requiring a permanent net connection. The ability to run any program on receipt of a message or delivery to a specific address is very handy, as is the ability for individual users to tailor their own mail deliveries and create their own mailing lists and aliases. Very powerful and very cool.
And, despite what some others have said about the brain damage involved in adding features to the source code: it's not that bad. I do wish, however, that there were at least some comments... The total lack of comments and useful variable names are a hindrance.
I'd go with postfix [postfix.org] too. I've put it in on several severs (1000 e-mails per day each) - not a lot of stress on a mail system, but it's done it with ease, and is easy and good to configure. Wietse is real active on mailing lists and newsgroups too - Postfix in general has a lot of really good, friendly, helpfull supporters. I like it.
I've tried getting exim going and the documentation is a pig.
Sendmail is not as hard to understand if you start from scratch and compile yourself. I have a box here which precesses 3700 emails in just under 20 minutes, each one is to a distinct address and each mail is unique so there is no change of concurrency speeding things up.
Use the m4 macros to build the config files and it's actually quite easy. That's using 8.11.0.
I've only had experience of qmail and sendmail, and qmail has been much better for us.
Qmail's modular approach makes most things easier, once you figure out how it all fits together [nrg4u.com]. It chews through mail very quickly, has the (IMHO) benefit of Maildir support - great if you share mailspools, or have a lot of POP users with big mailboxes - and a really flexible alias/rewriting mechanism.
The downsides are that things get a little rocky off of the beaten track sometimes. You do come across situations where qmail behaves differently enough from sendmail to be a pain (though not wrong), and I've found the mailing list to be somewhat obtuse at times (I don't subscribe - just searching other people's queries).
The other thing is to make sure that the HOWTO's you use match the software you have - several ancillary programs used with qmail have changed in incompatible ways in the past (the logging system, and the supervise setup - aka daemontools). The names have not changed to protect the innocent.
I just installed 8.11 from scratch myself, you *MUST* start from scratch. Do yourself a favor from the beginning use m4 and ditch the distro's sendmail (if any). But my experience with sendmail has been much more pleasant on the boxes where I've compiled it myself.
My main MTA is still sendmail 4.something with all the security holes. It runs just fine on my 386 and some old version of slackware from when slackware was king and redhat didn't exist. If it works don't break it is a good motto, and I proved that a year ago when I failed to get postfix working and it took me a couple day to get the old sendmail back. Since then I've been afraid to mess with that machine.
It occurs to me that you might consider switching to sendmail based on my comments of it working. while It is true that it works just fine even in these bad days, I don't recomend it. There are potential problems. However it still works for me, which is what counts: what works for you. If it ain't broke don't break it, but if it is broke fix it good, which is why I wanted to use postfix. (Now I'm just behind a firewall, which is second best.
I can't find anything in the sparse qmail documentation regarding anti-spam filtering. I'd love to start using qmail, but I won't do it if I can't use the RBL. Anybody know if qmail supports this?
qmail is fast on mailing lists (Score:3)
postfix (Score:2)
It's apparently more secure, due to security audits. Just hearsay, though...
Sendmail vs Qmail (Score:1)
Qmail rules, but... (Score:4)
The main problem I've had with it is the documentation, which is somewhat missing. The software is really modular, with a daemon to handle every task, you can really tailor it to your needs. Spam blocking, virtual hosting and more are done with modules. One of the results of this is that you have to look at many places for documentation and these many docs often contradict themselves.
There's a howto of correct quality, but if you go a bit further than standard setup (I tried to setup vmailmgr for virtualhosting) you're bust!
I also urge you to set it up on a debian distro, because some stuff like user accounts is already configured. Quentin
Debian's exim (Score:2)
We all love Debian here.
use qmail (Score:4)
Qmail is fast, efficient, easy to configure (the config files make sense) and there is a huge amount of support.
Qmail has been tight for years; the code hasn't changed in a long time. The only problem with that is the documentation is out of date. I heard rumours of a qmail 1.04 to fix the documentation.
After you choose qmail, I recommend ezmlm for mailing lists.
The configuration that always comes through for me is:
qmail+vpopmail+ezmlm
Make sure all of your domains are vpopmail virtuals.
Also, if you are affraid to get into the hardcore configuration right away, start with qmailadmin. It supports all the ezmlm stuff, so you can use the gui right away. You'll start running into limitations, but you will have lots of examples to use from that point.
btw, I have unsubscrbed from mailing lists because they use mailman.
Which MTA to use (Score:3)
exim ... (Score:2)
More seriously, exim is a breeze to set up and has coped with anything I've thrown at it / seen thrown at it
I do NOT recommend... (Score:3)
Re:use qmail (Score:3)
Comparison (Score:1)
Re:Comparison (Score:2)
Even though I personally haven't really compared any MTAs, you might want to check out this comparison table [linuxcare.com] which has users' ratings and comments for exim, postfix, qmail, sendmail, etc
Re:Qmail rules, *but*... (Score:1)
If it works for you. Then QMail is your choice of MTA. If not, then there's (in my opinion) a better documented, more elegant and faster evolving MTA. It's called Postfix.
(I'm working at a major ISP, and we've been using both QMail and Postfix for years. I tend to prefer Postfix, but your mileage may vary).
--
Sendmail ! (Score:1)
- sasl. need to say more ?
- thanks to sasl: smtp-auth (with cram-md5, etc
- starttls support
those features are a MUST for anyone who has roaming clients
they make a perfect combination
smtp-auth ist SO much better than those pop-relay patches
(I don't mind someone sniffing my e-mail
I DO mind sniffing my passwords
Samba Information HQ
I've tried exim, sendmail, qmail and postfix... (Score:2)
be a pain to configure and it has a rep for being
a big ass security hole(TM). Debian comes with
exim so I sometime use it when I don't have time
for either qmail or postfix. If I am setting up
a stand-alone system that isn't gonna be watched
over very closely I usually install qmail because
I have no doubt that it is the most secure out
of the box. Problem is that the author has this
stupid license that pretty much requires that you
compile/configure by hand. I'm spoiled from apt
and hate to do that anymore. On most machines I
choose postfix because it is very modular and
secure, seems to perform well, and it easy as heck
to chroot(). On Debian you just apt-get install
postfix and then edit master.cf and main.cf.
qmail, qmail, qmail... (Score:3)
I've set up at least a dozen qmail servers: small ones, big ones, red ones, blue ones...
Sendmail's a whore, and that's really the only other Linux MTA I've used. I've heard good things about Postfix but seriously I haven't found a single thing wrong with qmail [qmail.org]:
Jesus I have a lot more respect to the link crazy posts out there. :-)
At any rate -- I've run it for years now and never had a problem. The servers just work. We've used an alias system and serialmail to allow branch offices to pick up mail for their local users without requiring a permanent net connection. The ability to run any program on receipt of a message or delivery to a specific address is very handy, as is the ability for individual users to tailor their own mail deliveries and create their own mailing lists and aliases. Very powerful and very cool.
And, despite what some others have said about the brain damage involved in adding features to the source code: it's not that bad. I do wish, however, that there were at least some comments... The total lack of comments and useful variable names are a hindrance.
Go get it. Install it. Love it.
Re:I've tried exim, sendmail, qmail and postfix... (Score:3)
- apt-get install qmail-src
- cd
/usr/src/qmail-src
- build-qmail
The rest is self-explanatory (it'll create a deb package and optionally install it).Re:I've tried exim, sendmail, qmail and postfix... (Score:1)
Re:I do NOT recommend... (Score:1)
Re:Which MTA to use (Score:1)
Third-party support (Score:2)
-russ
You'll hate me for it but I like sendmail (Score:1)
Sendmail is not as hard to understand if you start from scratch and compile yourself. I have a box here which precesses 3700 emails in just under 20 minutes, each one is to a distinct address and each mail is unique so there is no change of concurrency speeding things up.
Use the m4 macros to build the config files and it's actually quite easy. That's using 8.11.0.
Re:I've tried exim, sendmail, qmail and postfix... (Score:1)
Qmail for me... (Score:1)
Qmail's modular approach makes most things easier, once you figure out how it all fits together [nrg4u.com]. It chews through mail very quickly, has the (IMHO) benefit of Maildir support - great if you share mailspools, or have a lot of POP users with big mailboxes - and a really flexible alias/rewriting mechanism.
The downsides are that things get a little rocky off of the beaten track sometimes. You do come across situations where qmail behaves differently enough from sendmail to be a pain (though not wrong), and I've found the mailing list to be somewhat obtuse at times (I don't subscribe - just searching other people's queries).
The other thing is to make sure that the HOWTO's you use match the software you have - several ancillary programs used with qmail have changed in incompatible ways in the past (the logging system, and the supervise setup - aka daemontools). The names have not changed to protect the innocent.
I'd recommend qmail though.
Re:You'll hate me for it but I like sendmail (Score:1)
-Aaron
Re:Third-party support (Score:1)
Third-party qmail support is available from many vendors, not just inter7
I realized this but I wasn't sure how to link them all up. :-) You solved it nicely.
sendmail 4.x - it still works. (Score:2)
My main MTA is still sendmail 4.something with all the security holes. It runs just fine on my 386 and some old version of slackware from when slackware was king and redhat didn't exist. If it works don't break it is a good motto, and I proved that a year ago when I failed to get postfix working and it took me a couple day to get the old sendmail back. Since then I've been afraid to mess with that machine.
BTW, I don't recomend it (Score:2)
It occurs to me that you might consider switching to sendmail based on my comments of it working. while It is true that it works just fine even in these bad days, I don't recomend it. There are potential problems. However it still works for me, which is what counts: what works for you. If it ain't broke don't break it, but if it is broke fix it good, which is why I wanted to use postfix. (Now I'm just behind a firewall, which is second best.
RBL / MAPS Connection? (Score:2)
-Waldo