From owner-freebsd-stable Sun Nov 14 13:14: 3 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mail.rdc1.wa.home.com (ha1.rdc1.wa.home.com [24.0.2.66]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 980E014C99 for ; Sun, 14 Nov 1999 13:13:53 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from johnmpurser@home.com) Received: from C37259A ([24.9.57.64]) by mail.rdc1.wa.home.com (InterMail v4.01.01.00 201-229-111) with SMTP id <19991114211352.HYNV1594.mail.rdc1.wa.home.com@C37259A>; Sun, 14 Nov 1999 13:13:52 -0800 Reply-To: From: "John Purser" To: "'Mike Meyer'" , "'Herbert Chang'" Cc: Subject: RE: Which mail server is the best? qmail, postfix or exim? Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 13:12:36 -0800 Message-ID: <000001bf2ee4$fa61d540$40390918@vncvr1.wa.home.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2377.0 In-Reply-To: <14383.6707.829646.48222@guru.phone.net> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Importance: Normal Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG This is more of a reference than an opinion. When I was using US West as an ISP I believe they were using qmail as a mail server. I think I saw something in the mail header that caused me to come to this conclusion. I can't recall a single instance of a mail service outage while I used them. I'm not sure what their user base is but I'd think that it said something about qmail's ability to handle the load. John Purser -----Original Message----- From: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG [mailto:owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Mike Meyer Sent: Sunday, November 14, 1999 12:23 PM To: Herbert Chang Cc: stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Which mail server is the best? qmail, postfix or exim? Herbert Chang writes: ;->I want to install a mail server on FreeBSD. There are many ports of mail ;->server on http://www.freebsd.org/ports/mail.html. I wonder which is the ;->best: qmail, postfix, exim or other? It depends on what you want it to do, and what your preferences are - and religion, of course. I use qmail, but I don't run a major mail hub. I find it easy to configure, and think the architecture (lots of processes talking on pipes) plays to Unix's strong suit. I have also been bitten by the technical problems with the Unix mailbox format enough to like the idea of using one that doesn't have those problems. The major drawback is that it is a thing unto itself. Converting an existing sendmail site with lots of lists & the like is a PITA. It also uses it's own mailbox format that many mailreaders can't deal with. Getting the qmail pop server up and running solves a lot of the latter, though.