Re: [opensuse] Virtual domain, between Postfix and Qmail

Hudibras wrote:
El vie, 29-06-2007 a las 18:15 +0200, Sandy Drobic escribió:
Hudibras wrote:
El vie, 29-06-2007 a las 15:06 +0200, Sandy Drobic escribió:
Hudibras wrote:

What problem are you trying to solve? If the question is "can Postfix do
that?" the answer is "yes, it can, and a lot more, too".
If the question is "Which MTA should I use?" The answer is "Use the one
you are able to administer and debug.".
I do prefer, no doubt about it, qmail.
Check www.shupp.org, and install in a twinkle the best mail server
(imho, of course).
And after, enjoy with a master piece of software.
What features were the deciding factor for you to choose Qmail? I don't
have any experience with Qmail myself, I chose Postfix because it has a
great support community, a very active development and the documentation
is extensive and accurate. Features like DSN and Policy Server/Milters
also became very important.
Do as you like. It's only my advice.

But after many years testing nearly every mail server, I don't change
qmail for anything in this world. It's simply a master piece of
software. People who knows me also know my opinion about qmail, and I
think this way from 1998-1999, when I tested the first time.
It's great that you like Qmail, but this doesn't give my any information
to compare it to Postfix.

I've no time (maybe several hours...) to explain each other
capabilities. But this is not the forum to that. I only said if you
would like a great (the best one, imho) MTA, qmail would be the first to
begin with.

I've got the same problem (not enough time), so I am very careful when the
project will consume hundreds of hours (it does take that much time to
really understand another program of that scale).

Ideally it would be great if someone had worked
with both programs and could compare how much effort it took to reach the
same result.

i've worked with both and more programs, as I said before.

That should give you a good basis to remember some circumstances where
something was very easy to configure in one product and much more
difficult in another. That is what I am looking for, the gotchas that you
encounter when you start to learn a program.

The first (beta) version of Postfix was released 1999, the first stable
release 1.0 appeared 2001, so I guess you didn't test Postfix at that time.

Well, I've said I began to test MTAs in 1998-1999, but I refered to it
in general, not considering Postfix o Exaim or Sendmail dates of
release. That is not important. I assure you I have used Postfix and I
missed mails, because of smtp deliveries if some cases. However that
thing never happened with qmail, independently the type of delivery,
domain existance or not, etc.

That is also what I am looking for. Can you remember under what
circumstances it happened and how long ago (which Postfix version)?

All features you like in a mail server, qmail does have them. So, why
don't you try and if not of your taste, install any other.
I can assure you my qmail is really the same I've got from 2002. And I
sleep peacefully while qmail works. That's not good, I know, but if you
don't want be ever watching a mail server, install qmail and forget
yourself.
I have heard the same being said about Postfix. I still wonder how anyone
can just install a mailserver and then forget about it. I am always
finetuning the configuration to adapt to new spammer tricks. agreed, it
would probably work without finetuning, but the rate of rejected spam
would probably drop a lot.

Of course. Postfix is a very very good MTA. I agree with you. But...
qmail is better. It's completely modular, and... several of today
Postfix capabilities are "copied" from qmail, like Maildir boxes... and
more.

Grin! If Postfix has (copied) all those features you like I don't need to
learn Qmail. (^-^)
Wietse himself said, that he rebuild in Postfix a lot of features he liked
in Sendmail. One of the bigger implementations of new features was the
milter protocol that was used only for Sendmail before. That gives Postfix
admins access to the large base of milter applications. He even got a
price from Sendmail for his implementation.

A big German ISP tested this, they simply stopped finetuning their
configuration and noticed a considerable drop in their rejection rate.

I've heard more things like this about qmail... So, that's not important
to me. For instance, several of the most important Domain Registration
Servers use qmail!
I hope you know what I mean (my English is not as good as my mother
tongue).

Qmail is one of the standard MTAs, no question.

If I had to choose another MTA other than Postfix I would probably switch
to Exim.
Postfix and Exim are two great mail servers, but I still do prefer
qmail, because (and it's only my opinion) is much better in most cases.
qmail version is the same from 1998, and it does not need any more; but
there are many people around helping and making "add-ons", making it
more powerful and never, never, never has a security hole or anything
like these.
However, sendmail or postfix really have holes... or is that not true?
At least for Postfix it is not true.

Yes. I saw time ago a severe security fix for Postfix... qmail doesn't
have ANY ONE.

Uh, which one? The only one I can remember was a TLS problem for Postfix
2.1. At that time Postfix itself had no own TLS implementation, so the
support was added with a 3rd party patch. That was also origin of the
security bug.


Sendmail had some problems with
security some years ago. In the last years I they tightened their code a
lot. Though I do remember that Sendmail had a remote exploitable bug last
year.


Yes. Sendmail is already history...

Sendmail is still the most widely implemented MTA, so I do not agree, even
if I myself don't like Sendmail. The few times I had to deal with it were
a nightmare. Of course the main reason was, that I didn't knew (and still
don't know) enough about Sendmail.

One good hint how secure Postfix is: Borderware has chosen Postfix as the
MTA of their Firewall.

Ok. I'm pleased for that.
Sorry, but I don't know Borderware, so, it's not a very relevant notice.

One of the better known firewall distributors.

So decide and have a try qmail, and you'll not be disappointed.
So far, this does not yet give me enough encouragement to invest the many
month of work to dig into Qmail as I did with Postfix. Before I change I
have to know if the annoyances in Postfix are worth dealing with the
annoyances of another MTA.
Every piece of software has some drawbacks, the question is rather if I am
willing to live with it or if I can circumvent the annoyance.

Sorry. It's your choice.

No need to be sorry. I happen to like Postfix.

Since I know Postfix quite well, so I know how to work around the
annoyances of Postfix, but that is not the case with Qmail (or Exim or
Sendmail).

Really. But this happens to everything.

That is exactly my point. I like to learn new things, but I also like to
know what I am about to start, especially when I decide to learn a new MTA.
A good start is important.
What mailinglist/website would you recommend for a QMail beginner?

Where are good sites with accurate documentations and how-tos? I just saw
http://cr.yp.to/qmail.html, which had some nice information, though it
seemed a bit old (they were talking about the situation in 2001).



--
Sandy

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