[NTLUG:Discuss] new mail server options

[David I S Mandala]

Postfix, never sendmail (sendmail had and has too much bad history of
security problems)
courier imap
Squirrelmail is good
clamAV is good.
Spamassassin is OK, I prefer ASK but not always acceptable for business
use.

maildir is much better then mbox if large mail spools are anticipated.
If you foo an mbox you can lose all mail contained in it, if you foo a
maildir file you can only lose a single email. Also courier IMAP only
works with maildir.

I've used qmail and swore by it in the past but switched because out of
the box it is useless and requires many patches to provide good value.
The patches come and go so there is a risk that unless you archive what
you are using today you will not get back in the future. Also Dan
Bernstein is a giant pain in the tail over his license. That said he is
one if the few people in the US to actually fight the government into a
standstill and win in court so there is that to be said for him. qmail
is a good package no doubt but I gave up supporting it because of his
license.

I have done commercial support of the above packages and found them to
be very solid.

Cheers,

David

On Wed, 2005-01-12 at 12:57 -0600, MontyS at videopost.com wrote:
> Greetings.
> 
> I would like to get opinions on various packages for email.  (Not trying to
> start flame wars, just wanting pros & cons and possibly alternatives...)
> 
> Postfix vs. sendmail?
> Which IMAP server is preferred?
> Squirrelmail for web-based email?
> clamAV for anti-virus?
> We will also be running Spamassassin.
> The OS is Red Hat ES3.  (We are a Red Hat "house" already.)
> 
> We are replacing an old WinNT/Exchange 5.5 server.  We will still be using
> Outlook for the client, but we don't use the "collaboration features" of
> Outlook.
> 
> What are the benefits/problems of using the maildir format over mbox?
> 
> I am going to try to not run pop, if possible.
> 
> Should I run the packages as bundled with the Red Hat distribution, or
> download them from their respective web/ftp sites?
> 
> >From my web research, Postfix, Squirrelmail, clamAV and of course
> Spamassassin seems to be the way to go at this time.  I can't get a clear
> indication of which IMAP server is "best".
> 
> Any other thoughts are greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your time.
> 
> Monty
> _______________________________________________
> https://ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> 
-- 
David Mandala <davidm at them dot com>
www.them.com/~davidm Public Key id: 45B2D952
Murphy TX, 75094 214.774.2569 HO 972.693.4007 C