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Need advice on mail server.

D

duby229

2[H]4U
Joined
May 1, 2005
Messages
3,014
Well, guys I need advice on a mail server.

I need to setup a mail server for a web site I'm putting togethor, but I have never done it before. This will be my first foray into the realm of sendmail and pop3d....

And so far it aint going well. Sendmail makes about as much sense as a monkey fuckin a grape.....

So I was wondering if you guys can recomend a mail server that will be a bit easier for a newb to deal with?
 
Here's something I wrote about getting a nice, basic mail server going under FreeBSD. You didn't specify what OS you were using...If you're using Linux, you can probably beat my directions in to submission for your needs.

I have ClamAV working through clamav-milter and spamassassin available to the users that want to use it. The entire mail setup is versatile and rock-solid.

I may switch to dovecot eventually for my IMAP daemon, though. The sieve functionality interests me, particularly as a way to conveniently send un-caught spam through spamassassin.
 
I haven't gone through them all in a while, but here are my list of bookmarks I've used to get my email servers going. I use postfix, dovecot, spamassassin, clamav, amavis, postgrey, with squirrelmail.

edit: this is on debian of course :D

http://spf.pobox.com/wizard.html?my..._far="v=spf1+a+mx+-all"&use_built_from_args=1
http://wiki.dovecot.org/
http://www.clivemenzies.co.uk/selfhelp/MailServer.html
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/ISP-Setup-RedHat-HOWTO.html
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Email_System_for_the_Home_Network
http://www.rulesemporium.com/index.html
http://postfix.state-of-mind.de/patrick.koetter/smtpauth/smtp_auth_mailservers.html
http://www200.pair.com/mecham/spam/spamfilter20050626.html
http://bliki.rimuhosting.com/space/knowledgebase/linux/mail/postfixadmin+on+debian+sarge
http://www200.pair.com/mecham/spam/spamfilter20050606.html
http://www.swelltech.com/support/virtual-servers/index.html
http://workaround.org/articles/ispmail-sarge/#populate
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/virt-mail-howto.xml
http://wiki.splitbrain.org/postfix?DokuWiki=f1cc8a65abe6d4815c2c6d890cd08595
http://www.gfxcafe.com/Mail Howto.htm
http://postfixwiki.org/index.php?title=Virtual_Users_and_Domains_with_Courier-IMAP_and_MySQL
http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/323
http://www.freespamfilter.org/FC4.html#_Toc110999210
http://rimuhosting.com/support/settingupemail.jsp?mta=postfix&t=squirrelmail#squirrelmail
http://www.squirrelmail.org/plugin_view.php?id=4
Click to expand...
 
Yeah... sendmail is one of the last remaining bits of cryptic Old Unix apps in common use. Exim, Qmail & Postfix are more popular modern MTAs.
 
ameoba said:
Yeah... sendmail is one of the last remaining bits of cryptic Old Unix apps in common use. Exim, Qmail & Postfix are more popular modern MTAs.
Click to expand...
Well, I don't know about more popular. They are definitely options, although personally I wouldn't recommend qmail to anybody unless they feel comfortable modifying code.

I don't have experience with exim or postfix. I do with sendmail and qmail. I recommend sendmail over qmail any day of the week. The options you want are built in, whereas with qmail they are third party patches which may or may not work correctly in any given environment. The only time qmail makes sense is when you feel comfortable writing your own patches, and then you lose qmail's claim to fame: Security.
 
ameoba said:
Yeah... sendmail is one of the last remaining bits of cryptic Old Unix apps in common use. Exim, Qmail & Postfix are more popular modern MTAs.
Click to expand...
More popular? No. More modern? Probably not. sendmail is still probably the most prevalent MTA out there. It's also consistently updated and has gone through a few rewrites. There's nothing wrong with postfix (but I generally dislike qmail on principle), but sendmail works quite well...Has for ages. :)
 
ameoba said:
Yeah... sendmail is one of the last remaining bits of cryptic Old Unix apps in common use. Exim, Qmail & Postfix are more popular modern MTAs.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I use and recommend postfix these days- it's still heavily developed, modern, and has a large use base.

There really isn't much of a trick to getting the MTA up and running- even Sendmail, it's when you start adding on that things can get a little tedious. Are you planning to use virtual hosts, relays, clamav, spamassassin, courier (imap or pop3 or both), pamauth or mysqlauth or other, webmail, ssl, etc? What operating system?

The links above by deuce are going to be helpful. Since I started using Gentoo the last couple years I have been following the guide he linked too (on the gentoo site). It's getting a little outdated, but it usually reminds me of what order to do things in and such. Your distro will most likely have a similar guide intended for it which will probably be your best bet.
 
I use qmail on my server, but I also use gentoo. Gentoo takes care of all the code patching needed, but its still a bitch to figgure out. Been using it for 3 years now, and still pray I never have to reinstall/configure it from scratch.
 
vxspiritxv said:
I use qmail on my server, but I also use gentoo. Gentoo takes care of all the code patching needed, but its still a bitch to figgure out. Been using it for 3 years now, and still pray I never have to reinstall/configure it from scratch.
Click to expand...
That's why I write that kind of stuff down. :)
 
[H]EMI_426 said:
That's why I write that kind of stuff down. :)
Click to expand...
I write it down too, but you never know when you'll run into a change in the OS that borks everything.
 
I wrote it all down too... but I made custom mods to qmailscanner perl script and other junk... not totally postive I wrote down EVERYTHING..... but thats ok, I do have backups. Linux is nice with backups, just tar/zip everything up and your good to go ... not like windows where you ether HAVE to install or have a sector by sector ghost image.

BTW be sure to look into spamassassin & virus scanner, I use f-prot.
And SPF 1.0 if you run your own domain servers.
You will also need to ether contact AOL white list junk (they have an automated web interface for that, free) or get reverse dns if you wish to send emails to aol.
 
I recently set up a Scalix server for the state gvt. agency I work for. Has a clean web interface, works well with a variety of clients, uses Sendmail to do SpamAssassin and ClamAV duties. Not too tedious to set up and has a fairly functional admin interface.
We're using the Community edition, forgoing full Outlook functionality for no licenses. It's a big step from the Exchange 5.5 we were running.
Scalix has good support forums, haven't run into anything yet that a trip there didn't cure.
 
XOR != OR said:
I write it down too, but you never know when you'll run into a change in the OS that borks everything.
Click to expand...
Another advantage to FreeBSD. If they change something, you'll know about it well in advance and it'll be well-documented. :)
 
I've been using sendmail, spamassassin, and cyrus-imapd for years now without a problem. Cyrus is probably overkill since it's just me and my gf that have email addys on the domain, but cyrus has seive - which I REALLY like for sorting spam, email lists, etc into folders when the message arrives. I also like the fact I can set up email users without unix accounts.
 
[H]EMI_426 said:
Another advantage to FreeBSD. If they change something, you'll know about it well in advance and it'll be well-documented. :)
Click to expand...
Forget it, you unwashed heathen.
 
bassman said:
I've been using sendmail, spamassassin, and cyrus-imapd for years now without a problem. Cyrus is probably overkill since it's just me and my gf that have email addys on the domain, but cyrus has seive - which I REALLY like for sorting spam, email lists, etc into folders when the message arrives. I also like the fact I can set up email users without unix accounts.
Click to expand...
I'm currently using procmail instead of sieve for handling e-mail-sorting on delivery. I thought sieve was just a method for performing an action on an e-mail when it's put in to an IMAP mailbox, which means you could pipe it through sa-learn or the like.

XOR: give in. You know you want to. :) Unwashed? The FreeBSD users tend to smell a lot less than the Linux users everywhere I go. :)
 
[H]EMI_426 said:
I thought sieve was just a method for performing an action on an e-mail when it's put in to an IMAP mailbox, which means you could pipe it through sa-learn or the like.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure seive is only does stuff like sorting into mailboxes, rejecting, deleting, auto-responses, etc. I don't think seive will run arbitrary programs or shell constructs (like piping), but I could be wrong. I haven't looked at the RFC for awhile. Maybe it does more now.
 
I decided to try qmail. So far no luck getting it to work, but I think I'll be able to, after I get a little more familiar with it.

I ued the qmailrocksongentoo instructions, which can be found on the gentoo wiki. Right now the only problem I'm having is logging into qmailadmin. It just keeps giving an invalid login error. I know it is set up according to the instructions cause I went over it 3 times. I'm also having trouble logging into vqadmin. It just keeps dumping me to the login prompt with no errors. Again I know it is set up according to the instructions becouse I went over it 3 times. Still no luck....

I browsed the web to see if other people were having the same problem and sure enough, there are tons, but I wasnt able to find anyone with a solution. So I think I'll just hang out for a bit and wait for someone to figure it out. Or keep putsin with it till I figure it out.
 
Having worked on a large scale (think millions of messages delivered per day) with both qmail and exim, I would much prefer exim unless you need to process tons of mail on a limited amount of hardware. That's the only thing I've found qmail has going for it. Exim is more flexible in every manner.

However, I guess i'm left wondering a bit more about your situation; is this a dedicated server you are leasing? Running at home on your broadband? Unless you really need to, it makes a lot more sense to relay your mail through a smarthost somewhere than run your own. Administering a mail server is no small task
 
I'm setting up a web server for the company I work for. The server will be used as a portal to try and keep everyone informed about what is going on. We have abot 15 techs that all travel, and between us it is a pain in the ass to keep track of each other. Everybody has a different agaenda, and a different email address, and so far it has just been a pain in the ass.

So I'm putting this portal together so we can keep in touch, and I'm putting this mail server togethor so it is consistant.
 
Look up poatfix admin.

It's a php/web based front end to help administer a mail server.
It comes with instructions on how to setup a postfix/courier/mysql setup.

I've used it on a custom setup for 3 years now, and the only problem I've ever had have been hardware.
 
At the ISP where I work as a Systems Admin we use Postfix. I also use it on the company I do IT consulting with.

Works like a charm, powerful, fast, and easy to use.
 
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