Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
> > > Can someone write here an easy understandable configuration for > > > Postfix with virtual domains ? After some call for help here, none of > > > you that know Posfix did it... there is an easy understandable VIRTUAL_README in postfix docs yet (at least in woody version), so it's not necessary to write another one; moreover on the Net, there are many howtos for specific situations if you run into trouble with the info, let send more specific questions. regards David -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
- Original Message - From: "Ruth A. Kramer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2004 6:48 AM Subject: Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?) > I'd like to try to help (to write an easy understandable configuration > for Postfix with virtual domains), but: Thanks ! Someone sent me sutch help from sendmail. A document telling how to do it for few MTAs could be written and for sure would be helpfull for a lot... >* I don't know how to do it myself, so if we get good responses here, > I'll try to help organize them on a WikiLearn page. Cool ! Don't forget to post here when it's done ! :) > I suppose setting up a virtual email domain means getting Postfix to > accept mail (for local delivery) for an email address that is not > "native" to the machine hosting the email server. yes > For example, if I have an email server named myemailserver.com, but want > to receive email for an address like [EMAIL PROTECTED], I then need > a virtual email domain? yes. And moreover, it's important that it can be possible to choose where a mailbox will be on the filesystem. A centralised /var/mail with all mbox files in it may not be the best design... > Questions: >* can I then also send email from [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes, with tools like smtp with auth and/or webmail on that server for example. >* must rhkramer.com be a registered domain name (I assume so)? Yes, and the MX of that domain must point to that mailserver, otherwise mailserver should reject all message for that domain (that's what qmail do, exept if you do relaying). Regards, Thomas GOIRAND Get a hosting account: http://gplhost.com GPL.Host: Open source hosting worldwide -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
Sorry about the attributions below -- I suspect they are incorrect -- I didn't save some of the earlier posts in this thread, and didn't try searching the archives. Craig Sanders wrote: Thomas GOIRAND wrote??: > > Can someone write here an easy understandable configuration for > > Postfix with virtual domains ? After some call for help here, none of > > you that know Posfix did it... I'd like to try to help (to write an easy understandable configuration for Postfix with virtual domains), but: * I don't know how to do it myself, so if we get good responses here, I'll try to help organize them on a WikiLearn page. * I'm not even quite sure what virtual domains means or what they accomplish, so I'll start by asking that question, trying to answer it myself, and then asking some followup questions. I suppose setting up a virtual email domain means getting Postfix to accept mail (for local delivery) for an email address that is not "native" to the machine hosting the email server. For example, if I have an email server named myemailserver.com, but want to receive email for an address like [EMAIL PROTECTED], I then need a virtual email domain? Questions: * can I then also send email from [EMAIL PROTECTED] * must rhkramer.com be a registered domain name (I assume so)? Randy Kramer -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
On Tue, Feb 24, 2004 at 03:29:04PM +0100, Thomas GOIRAND wrote: > - Original Message - > From: "Craig Sanders" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 09:34:52PM +0100, Bj?rnar Bj?rgum Larsen wrote: > > > > 4. the configuration is truly bizarre.bernstein has his own > > non-standard directory structures, and a liking for many little files. > > many of these files are 'magical' - the contents are irrelevant, mere > > existence of them alters behaviour of the program, and even causes programs > > to be run automagically. > > > > this makes it impossible to experiment by temporarily commenting out > > particular lines - you have to delete a file, and then hope you can > > remember what it was called if you need to re-enable that feature. > > I deseagree on that. I've found qmail's config file a lot more efficient than > one stupid unic file, fine. you have every right to be wrong. > Can someone write here an easy understandable configuration for > Postfix with virtual domains ? After some call for help here, none of > you that know Posfix did it... sorry, but it's not our problem if YOU can't understand clear and simple instructions or concepts. virtual domains are a well-documented part of postfix, and have been for years. > > 5. bernstein likes to reinvent the wheel. he does this (and does it badly) > > without regard to whether the wheel actually needs to be reinvented or not > > (e.g. ucspi-tcp). > > > > this is compounded by the fact that it is a complete PITA to use any of his > > programs without using all of his programs. > > I deseagree a lot on that also. Bernstein has coded ucspi-tcp as a > replacement for the standard tcp program. the program you are thinking of is called inetd (or xinetd - another version with resource limitation controls built in). > He has the rights to do so, and you have the rights not to use it if you like > inetd... of course he has the right to do so. that is beyond question. it was just unneccesary and stupid of him to do so. more to the point, if he's going to reinvent the wheel he should at least try to do a good job - a square wheel isn't any use to anyone. > that focus on staying on unix style, you couldn't be more wrong on this point. his programs implement BERNSTEIN-style, not traditional unix style. his programs are about as different from unix style as it's possible for software to be and still run on unix systems. craig -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
- Original Message - From: "Craig Sanders" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Bj?rnar Bj?rgum Larsen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 11:13 PM Subject: Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?) > On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 09:34:52PM +0100, Bj?rnar Bj?rgum Larsen wrote: > > 4. the configuration is truly bizarre.bernstein has his own non-standard > directory structures, and a liking for many little files. many of these files > are 'magical' - the contents are irrelevant, mere existence of them alters > behaviour of the program, and even causes programs to be run automagically. > > this makes it impossible to experiment by temporarily commenting out particular > lines - you have to delete a file, and then hope you can remember what it was > called if you need to re-enable that feature. I deseagree on that. I've found qmail's config file a lot more efficient than one stupid unic file, and most of the time the only files you have to modify are thoses (read it as "file: content". In this example, one and only mailbox is configurated for [EMAIL PROTECTED] has one unic row: -- /var/qmail/control/me: hostname.domain.com one line per domains: - /var/qmail/control/rcpthosts: domain.com /var/qmail/control/virtualdomains: domain.com:domain-com one line per mailbox: - /var/qmail/users/assign: =domain-com-joe:nobody:888:888:path::: /etc/poppasswd: pop_login:crypted_password:real_login:path I use /etc/poppasswd for popauth instead of /etc/passwd (using checklocalpwd password check replacement from Jedi) when I don't want to use SQL... I think it's clear, simple, and efficient. If you want to keep backups, then tar the /var/qmail/control folder and it's done... Can someone write here an easy understandable configuration for Postfix with virtual domains ? After some call for help here, none of you that know Posfix did it... > 5. bernstein likes to reinvent the wheel. he does this (and does it badly) > without regard to whether the wheel actually needs to be reinvented or not > (e.g. ucspi-tcp). > > this is compounded by the fact that it is a complete PITA to use any of his > programs without using all of his programs. I deseagree a lot on that also. Bernstein has coded ucspi-tcp as a replacement for the standard tcp program. He has the rights to do so, and you have the rights not to use it if you like inetd... His code is not well commented, maybe a bit hard to read for non-unix gurus, it's true. But it ends to very a short code, that focus on staying on unix style, eg modular, and reusing existing tools. If you want to have a quick idea of what I'm talking about, have a look at qmail-pop3d.c and you'll understand what it is all about. I've done mysqmail, a bunch of 3 binaries for having pop3 auth using mysql, and smtp + pop3 traffic accounted by domains in mySQL database. See: http://www.gplhost.com/?rub=softwares&sousrub=mysqmail For example, Bernstein uses his own "puts()" function that is NOT the real unix puts() function. The if you want to use the real unix puts(), patching means renaming his puts() into puts2() or something... This does not mean at all it's not well written. It's hard to read, but the resulting code seams to be efficient when you see the C code. On the counter part, I agree totaly on the fact that qmail should include all the add-ons made by lot's of people, like one of thoses dozens of pop alternative authentification. > ps: as for postfix being better - it is: > > 1. free software, with a real free software license (IBM public license) > 2. actively developed, with a friendly principal developer and helpful > developer & user community. > 3. backwards compatible with sendmail, so migration is easy > 4. secure > 5. fast (much faster than qmail) > 6. the best anti-spam features of any MTA available > 7. more features than you can poke a stick at For sure, I'll spend more time on Postfix soon... :) Best regards, Thomas GOIRAND Get a hosting account: http://gplhost.com GPL.Host: Open source hosting worldwide -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
Hi, On Sat, 21.02.2004 at 00:23:26 +0100, Adam ENDRODI <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Since the license prohibits distributing binary packages built > from modified source, you must rely on other methods of > installation. (On the other hand, once done, it's done for ever; > see the next point). well, if you are a new user and want to look at qmail, then you should *not* look at the Debian package qmail-src, but to this instead: http://qmail.mirrors.space.net/netqmail-1.05.tar.gz (found from http://qmail.mirrors.space.net/top.html) Or, if you have "higher" requirements, look at http://www.qmail-ldap.org/ > The most recent version (1.03) was released in the middle of 1998. > (Well, at least you won't have frequent head-ache due to new > releases :) Stock qmail-1.03 is sort of not recommended any longer, but superseded by netqmail. Best, --Toni++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
Bjørnar Bjørgum Larsen wrote: I am in the process of choosing between postfix and qmail for our mail relays. I've not decided yet. However, I am surprised by the fact that many people who prefer postfix, also enjoy posting unqualified[0] statements[1][2][3] about qmail. If anyone have properly grounded views, please share! Qmail does _everything_ like DJB thinks is the right way: - The FHS doesn't exist - /sbin/init and inetd suck, because they're based on 30 year old design - The biggest problem with qmail is it's license, as it permits to release a secure _and_ feature-rich binary distribution. This may be no big reason for one or two people managing one or two servers, but in an ISP environment I (and many other) prefer to save time by using "apt-get install". Another problem is: qmail (at least in standard configuration) is an I/O hog. At one client it was unable to saturate a T1 from a celeron 433 machine with a cheap IDE drive. Postfix in standard configuration outperformed it by factor 5 (and maybe more, since the T1 was saturated then). I was pretty confused about the number of config files. Yes, even Postfix has some, but there's not one config file for each subsystem. (That argument applies to Sam Varchawik's software [Courier MTA/-IMAP] as well). [...] [1] Michael Loftis wrote (about qmail): First is, unless they've made design changes, it's trivial to DoS. Really? How would you DoS qmail? Could the same attack be used to DoS postfix? [2] Michael Loftis also wrote (about qmail): Second, it doesn't scale so well, but unless you're talking upwards of about 3-5k/msgs/hr you might not run into it. Really? Quoting Bernstein quoting Bill Weinman (cr.yp.to/qmail/users.html): "Our busiest list is about 250 messages X 1800 subscribers (avg mail deliveries: 450,000 transactions per day). Sendmail was barfing badly on this, and qmail seems to be doing real well. The machine is a Pentium 90 running Linux 2.0.13 with 64Mb of RAM. I have the spawn limit set at 100. I am *very* impressed." How was the qmail that didn't scale well configured? On what hardware? See _my_ #2. Qmail _may_ scale well, but it *doesn't* in standard configuration. Did I mention that nobody with a clean mind runs critical and I/O intensive tasks on such hardware? [3] Craig Sanders wrote: ps: qmail is a bad idea. postfix is better. Your conclusion may be right, but the arguments are missing. Would you please share? I agree. Both statements. Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 09:34:52PM +0100, Bj?rnar Bj?rgum Larsen wrote: > I am in the process of choosing between postfix and qmail for our mail relays. I've > not decided yet. However, I am surprised by the fact that many people who prefer > postfix, also enjoy posting unqualified[0] statements[1][2][3] about qmail. > > If anyone have properly grounded views, please share! I used qmail for several years. One reason I dismissed it from my systems was its source code, which I regarded incoprehensive. For me, it meant whenever found myself in trouble I could not look at the source and trace down the problem, could not fix things I considered bugs and it was impossible to add new or to complete features I missed. DJB's taste to reinvent everything (including libc functions) was also disturbing. There are many supplementary patches to qmail; I suspect the number of machines running the virgin qmail is relatively low. As a consequence, in case you wished to achieve anything non-trivial you need to patch the source with code that's quality is unknown. Since the license prohibits distributing binary packages built from modified source, you must rely on other methods of installation. (On the other hand, once done, it's done for ever; see the next point). The most recent version (1.03) was released in the middle of 1998. (Well, at least you won't have frequent head-ache due to new releases :) bit, adam -- Am I a cleric? | 1024D/37B8D989 Or maybe a sinner? | 954B 998A E5F5 BA2A 3622 Unbeliever?| 82DD 54C2 843D 37B8 D989 Renegade? | http://sks.dnsalias.net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
[no cc:s necessary, thanks] On Friday 20 February 2004 12.37, Craig Sanders wrote: > On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 at 08:36:08AM +0100, Adrian 'Dagurashibanipal' von Bidder wrote: > > I guess the document was written years ago, when postfix did indeed lack > > *some* of the features people did expect (one of them being the ability > > to reject mail instead of bounce it ;-) > > actually, it is qmail and not postfix that can't 5xx reject mail. qmail > has to accept and bounce it.postfix has always been able to reject > unwanted mail during the SMTP session (although the relay_recipient_maps > option is a relatively recent addition for rejecting unknown relay > recipient addresses). Hmm. Weren't there some early postifx 1.x releases who did by default bounce on unknown users? Or was it something different? I seem to dimly remember some discussions about the possibility to bounce directly in the SMTP dialog instead of bouncing under some circumstances. Anyway, the issue is of purely historic interest - today's postfix does of course reject mail quite early in most, if not all, cases where this is possible. cheers -- vbi -- Do you understand now why we attacked Iraq? Because war is good for the economy, which means war is good for America. Also, since God is on America's side, anyone who opposes war is a godless un-American Communist. -- excerpt from one of those 'joke' mails floating around. pgp0.pgp Description: signature
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 at 08:36:08AM +0100, Adrian 'Dagurashibanipal' von Bidder wrote: > On Thursday 19 February 2004 23.28, Craig Sanders wrote: > > On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 09:34:52PM +0100, Bj?rnar Bj?rgum Larsen wrote: > > > For example, I'd like comments on > > > http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/postfix.ht > > >ml > > > > a collection of lies, half-truths, and mistruths. > > Since Bj?rnar was asking for qualified information, let's do the dance for > him... well done. you put a lot more effort in than i thought was warranted for tripe like that. > > the best that can be said about this document is that the author doesn't > > know what he is talking about. > > I guess the document was written years ago, when postfix did indeed lack > *some* of the features people did expect (one of them being the ability to > reject mail instead of bounce it ;-) actually, it is qmail and not postfix that can't 5xx reject mail. qmail has to accept and bounce it.postfix has always been able to reject unwanted mail during the SMTP session (although the relay_recipient_maps option is a relatively recent addition for rejecting unknown relay recipient addresses). BTW, bouncing rather than rejecting contributes significantly to the spam and virus problem. when a virus or spamware encounters a 5xx rejection, it does nothing, it just ignores it and moves on to the next victim address. when qmail accepts and bounces such a mail, it ends up spamming the forged sender address with unwanted bounces (which is also extra work for the qmail system itself - serious consequences during a spammer dictionary attack) > > > http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/qmail.html > | host and user masquerading, > | virtual users, > | virtual domains, > | users that are not in /etc/passwd, > | SMTP Relay being denied by default, > | per-host SMTP Relay control, > | consultation of SMTP client blacklist and whitelist databases (using > | rblsmtpd from UCSPI-TCP), and > | an 8-bit clean SMTP server. > > postfix does all of these. but qmail doesn't do all of them. in particular, it is not really an 8-bit clean SMTP server. one of the requirements for 8-bit clean-ness is that the MTA translate 8-bit bodies to 7-bit quoted-printable if the mail is being sent to a non-8-bit MTA. qmail doesn't bother to do this. qmail's failure here is quite deliberate. bernstein's intention is to cause breakage for what he sees as obsolete systems. fair enough, they may be obsolete but to deliberately feed them data that you know they can't handle is irresponsible vandalism. it is also an extreme version of his notorious disdain for any kind of backwards-compatibility or migration path. see section 3.1 of http://www-dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de/~ma/qmail-bugs.html and bernstein's own words on the subject: http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html (in fact, the entire qmail-bugs document mentioned above is worth reading) craig -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
On Thursday 19 February 2004 23.28, Craig Sanders wrote: > On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 09:34:52PM +0100, Bj?rnar Bj?rgum Larsen wrote: > > For example, I'd like comments on > > http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/postfix.ht > >ml > > a collection of lies, half-truths, and mistruths. Since Bjørnar was asking for qualified information, let's do the dance for him... | It has an official web page, but no third-party user-run web pages. http://www.aet.tu-cottbus.de/personen/jaenicke/postfix_tls/ http://www.kobitosan.net/postfix/ http://postfix.state-of-mind.de/patrick.koetter/smtpauth/ | However unlike qmail, there is not a large cottage industry producing | third-party extensions and contributions to Postfix. This is because the | modules in Postfix are more tightly coupled to one another and the | interfaces between them are undocumented, making it harder to write | third-party add-ons and replacement modules for Postfix than for qmail. http://www.postfix.org./addon.html | Also, this modularity does not extend to Postfix' configuration files. | Postfix is firmly in the same camp as exim and Sendmail here. It uses two | large monolithic configuration files, master.cf and main.cf, rather than | multiple simple small task-oriented configuration files. Like with all True, but is in the 'it's a feature, not a bug' category: you have all the info in one place, and you have comments in the default and (lots of) example conffiles. I guess exim4 has the best of both worlds here with a .d style directory, I wonder if postfix will follow suit here. | applications that choose this route, configuring Postfix thus requires that | one learn a set of configuration file keywords, and automated configuration | cannot be easily done under script control with echo and cat. There is postconf, and if add sed/awk to your toolset, you are not so helpless. Besides: how often do you do scripted reconfiguration of your mailer? I touch conffiles less than every month. | The glaring omission is a secure queue submission mechanism. Here Postfix | trades the appearance of security for actual security. Postfix boasts that | as standard it has no set-UID or set-GID programs, which superficially | appears to be an attractive feature. However, this boast comes at a price. | The price is that local users can place arbitrary junk into the mail | submission area, or delete submitted messages. Both qmail and MMDF avoid | this by having a non-world-writable submission directory and the program | that does the writing to that directory (qmail-queue and submit, | respectively) set-UID to its owner (the only set-UID program in the entire | package in the case of qmail). Huh? Users can send arbitrary junk in mail. Wow. Unique feature of postfix, sure. The only world writable things I could find in /var/spool/postfix were the sockets - so everybody can open the sockets and fifos in the 'public' directory. I guess this makes sense as everybody should be permitted to send email. | Furthermore, Postfix does not even fully utilise the user partitioning | capabilities of the operating system to fully insulate users from other | users as qmail does. You'd have to read the code to assess these. | Which daemons in Postfix run as root is not documented in the manual pages. ps is a handy tool, for one thing. Also, the man pages *do* have a 'SECURITY' section, where it say things like 'The qmgr daemon does not talk to the outside world, and it can be run at fixed low privilege in a chrooted environment.' | Postfix contains numerous configuration options, particularly in the area of | SMTP Relay service. However, the flexibility of Postfix is in many ways | illusory. Many of the configuration options control features that are | half-baked ideas from the Half-Baked Ideas Brigade. The two examples, smtpd_helo_restrictions and reject_unknown_client, *can* be used by site administrators. The default configuration afaik leaves them out. The documentation does describe what they do - and anybody with a bit of experience in fighting spam can see why they are useful. | There are several different "mbox" formats. MTSes such as qmail use the | "mboxrd" format that was proposed by Rahul Dhesi on 1995-06-04, which uses a | reversible encoding of "From " lines in messages. However, Postfix uses the | "mboxo" format instead. The encoding of "From " lines is not reversible in | this format, and where the original message contained a "From " line there | is no means for an MUA to obtain the message in its original form as it was | before Postfix delivered it to the mailbox. Somebody else will have to comment on that - I've got no idea what he's talking about here. | Postfix always requires DNS service. Dunno, never have tracked DNS calls. | Postfix modifies in-transit and inbound mail. I think the idea here is that any mail postfix spits out is regular mail according to the RF
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 11:22:54PM +0100, Adrian 'Dagurashibanipal' von Bidder wrote: > I take this to mean that there are no binaries to download from postifx.org > itself - all binaries are made by integrators/vendors. This does not mean > that making binaries is not allowed. Binaries are, indeed, released through vendors. See http://www.postfix.org/packages.html for a listing of various links to packages of postfix. The postfix.org website doesn't have the packages, but links to them all. According to the mirrors, Things are done according to the IBM public license, http://getmyip.com/mirror/pub/LICENSE Read the IBM public license and take it from there. Hope this might help clear up any licensing/packaging issues with postfix. Sorry, I cannot comment as to the status of qmail, since I have chosen to use postfix instead. j -- == + It's simply not | John Keimel+ + RFC1149 compliant!| [EMAIL PROTECTED]+ + | http://www.keimel.com + == pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 09:34:52PM +0100, Bj?rnar Bj?rgum Larsen wrote: > For example, I'd like comments on > http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/postfix.html a collection of lies, half-truths, and mistruths. the best that can be said about this document is that the author doesn't know what he is talking about. > and > http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/qmail.html biased bullshit and boosterism. rah rah rah! worship bernstein. craig -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
On Thursday 19 February 2004 21.56, Dan MacNeil wrote: > > http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/postfix.ht > >ml > > says at the very bottom: > > Postfix is only available in source form, > not as precompiled or prepackaged binaries. > There is a list of FTP sites that hold the > source tarball on the official web site. > > I have apt-get install'd postfix so I suspect this is not true. If this is > an error, there may be others. I take this to mean that there are no binaries to download from postifx.org itself - all binaries are made by integrators/vendors. This does not mean that making binaries is not allowed. cheers -- vbi -- Der Satire steht das Recht auf Übertreibung zu. Aber sie hat es schon seit langem nicht mehr nötig, von diesem Recht Gebrauch zu machen. -- Gabriel Laub pgp0.pgp Description: signature
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 09:34:52PM +0100, Bj?rnar Bj?rgum Larsen wrote: > [3] Craig Sanders wrote: > > ps: qmail is a bad idea. postfix is better. > > Your conclusion may be right, but the arguments are missing. Would you please > share? search the archives of this list. MTA comparisons have been discussed many times. i've made the arguments several times before and i'm getting bored of it. to summarise: 1. because qmail is so different from other MTAs, it is a dead-end trap, just like proprietary software. bernstein doesn't believe in making any effort to assist people who were using other MTAs and want to switch - migrating to qmail is a pain, and migrating away from it is just as bad. 2. it has severe licensing problems, which mean that the code basically stagnated years ago. no patches are ever accepted into qmail, and the author doesn't appear to be interested in making any improvements (in his estimation, it is already "perfect"...ignoring several glaringly obvious faults and lacks). the license means that using qmail is a reversion to the bad old days before free software became ubiqitous - the late 1980s for instance. back then you had to hunt for the original source (easy enough), then hunt for every patch that you needed to make it useful, then apply them (and hope that the patches are compatiblediscovering by trial and error that they can be compatible but only if applied in a particular *undocumented* order), then compile and install it. 3. bernstein insists that you discard years of practice, tools, and techniques and start from scratch. if you don't like it, then you are a moron because bernstein is Always Right so don't complain. 4. the configuration is truly bizarre.bernstein has his own non-standard directory structures, and a liking for many little files. many of these files are 'magical' - the contents are irrelevant, mere existence of them alters behaviour of the program, and even causes programs to be run automagically. this makes it impossible to experiment by temporarily commenting out particular lines - you have to delete a file, and then hope you can remember what it was called if you need to re-enable that feature. it also means that there is no config file containing comments to serve as working reference documentation. 5. bernstein likes to reinvent the wheel. he does this (and does it badly) without regard to whether the wheel actually needs to be reinvented or not (e.g. ucspi-tcp). this is compounded by the fact that it is a complete PITA to use any of his programs without using all of his programs. 6. the author is a rude jerk. this is undisputed, even by those who actually like bernstein's software. craig ps: as for postfix being better - it is: 1. free software, with a real free software license (IBM public license) 2. actively developed, with a friendly principal developer and helpful developer & user community. 3. backwards compatible with sendmail, so migration is easy 4. secure 5. fast (much faster than qmail) 6. the best anti-spam features of any MTA available 7. more features than you can poke a stick at -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
On Thu, 2004-02-19 at 11:34, Bjørnar Bjørgum Larsen wrote: > I am in the process of choosing between postfix and qmail for our mail relays. I've > not decided yet. However, I am surprised by the fact that many people who prefer > postfix, also enjoy posting unqualified[0] statements[1][2][3] about qmail. > > If anyone have properly grounded views, please share! > > For example, I'd like comments on > http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/postfix.html > and > http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/qmail.html > > > > [0] A _qualified_ statement would e.g. be "qmail is trivially DoS'ed by sending > emails with no subject at a rate of 2 per second". Typical unqualified statements > are shown below. > > [1] Michael Loftis wrote (about qmail): > > First is, unless they've made design changes, > > it's trivial to DoS. > > Really? How would you DoS qmail? Could the same attack be used to DoS postfix? > > [2] Michael Loftis also wrote (about qmail): > > Second, it doesn't scale so well, but unless > > you're talking upwards of about 3-5k/msgs/hr > > you might not run into it. > > Really? Quoting Bernstein quoting Bill Weinman (cr.yp.to/qmail/users.html): > "Our busiest list is about 250 messages X 1800 subscribers > (avg mail deliveries: 450,000 transactions per day). Sendmail > was barfing badly on this, and qmail seems to be doing real > well. The machine is a Pentium 90 running Linux 2.0.13 with > 64Mb of RAM. I have the spawn limit set at 100. I am *very* > impressed." > > How was the qmail that didn't scale well configured? On what hardware? > > [3] Craig Sanders wrote: > > ps: qmail is a bad idea. postfix is better. > > Your conclusion may be right, but the arguments are missing. Would you please share? > > > Thanks, > > :) Bjornar > Bjornar, I have run them all at one time or another. We currently are running qmail for our main MTA's but have postfix running on the sidelines. I don't care to debate MTA's any more. Akin to debating which is a better automobile. So I say, "pick a horse and ride". Now that said, it really depends on your experience, time focus, OS and hardware. qmail does the job, round the clock. So does postfix. You mentioned nothing specifically about what you wanted to do with your MTA relays ? Hard to help. qmail & postix will both relay. Dee -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
On Thursday 19 February 2004 21.34, Bjørnar Bjørgum Larsen wrote: > I am in the process of choosing between postfix and qmail for our mail > relays. I've not decided yet. Matter of taste - I find postfix' log files are orders of magnitude easier to read than qmail's. Also matter of taste - I could not wrap my head around qmail's configuration ideology. postfix imho stays closer to what I expect from a program in the Unix world. These two made the decision for me quite early, and I'm happy with postfix now, so I haven't gone back to see how well qmail would have dealt with requirements. A third argument - also not of the hard facts kind - is that I don't like qmail's licensing. cheers -- vbi -- Maintenance-free: When it breaks, it can't be fixed... pgp0.pgp Description: signature
Re: qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
> http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/postfix.html says at the very bottom: Postfix is only available in source form, not as precompiled or prepackaged binaries. There is a list of FTP sites that hold the source tarball on the official web site. I have apt-get install'd postfix so I suspect this is not true. If this is an error, there may be others. The biggest complaint I've heard about qmail is that its license requires you to install binaries according to the taste of the creator. This means that things are the same on Debian solaris and redhat but also makes it less "standard" if all you use is one distribution. On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Bjørnar Bjørgum Larsen wrote: > I am in the process of choosing between postfix and qmail for our mail > relays. I've not decided yet. However, I am surprised by the fact that > many people who prefer postfix, also enjoy posting unqualified[0] > statements[1][2][3] about qmail. > > If anyone have properly grounded views, please share! > > For example, I'd like comments on > http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/postfix.html > and > http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/qmail.html > > > > [0] A _qualified_ statement would e.g. be "qmail is trivially DoS'ed by sending > emails with no subject at a rate of 2 per second". Typical unqualified statements > are shown below. > > [1] Michael Loftis wrote (about qmail): > > First is, unless they've made design changes, > > it's trivial to DoS. > > Really? How would you DoS qmail? Could the same attack be used to DoS postfix? > > [2] Michael Loftis also wrote (about qmail): > > Second, it doesn't scale so well, but unless > > you're talking upwards of about 3-5k/msgs/hr > > you might not run into it. > > Really? Quoting Bernstein quoting Bill Weinman (cr.yp.to/qmail/users.html): > "Our busiest list is about 250 messages X 1800 subscribers > (avg mail deliveries: 450,000 transactions per day). Sendmail > was barfing badly on this, and qmail seems to be doing real > well. The machine is a Pentium 90 running Linux 2.0.13 with > 64Mb of RAM. I have the spawn limit set at 100. I am *very* > impressed." > > How was the qmail that didn't scale well configured? On what hardware? > > [3] Craig Sanders wrote: > > ps: qmail is a bad idea. postfix is better. > > Your conclusion may be right, but the arguments are missing. Would you please share? > > > Thanks, > > :) Bjornar > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
qmail or postfix? (was: RE: What is the best mailling list manager for qmail and Domain Tech. Control ?)
I am in the process of choosing between postfix and qmail for our mail relays. I've not decided yet. However, I am surprised by the fact that many people who prefer postfix, also enjoy posting unqualified[0] statements[1][2][3] about qmail. If anyone have properly grounded views, please share! For example, I'd like comments on http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/postfix.html and http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/qmail.html [0] A _qualified_ statement would e.g. be "qmail is trivially DoS'ed by sending emails with no subject at a rate of 2 per second". Typical unqualified statements are shown below. [1] Michael Loftis wrote (about qmail): > First is, unless they've made design changes, > it's trivial to DoS. Really? How would you DoS qmail? Could the same attack be used to DoS postfix? [2] Michael Loftis also wrote (about qmail): > Second, it doesn't scale so well, but unless > you're talking upwards of about 3-5k/msgs/hr > you might not run into it. Really? Quoting Bernstein quoting Bill Weinman (cr.yp.to/qmail/users.html): "Our busiest list is about 250 messages X 1800 subscribers (avg mail deliveries: 450,000 transactions per day). Sendmail was barfing badly on this, and qmail seems to be doing real well. The machine is a Pentium 90 running Linux 2.0.13 with 64Mb of RAM. I have the spawn limit set at 100. I am *very* impressed." How was the qmail that didn't scale well configured? On what hardware? [3] Craig Sanders wrote: > ps: qmail is a bad idea. postfix is better. Your conclusion may be right, but the arguments are missing. Would you please share? Thanks, :) Bjornar -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
