Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 02:33:28 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "MikeM" <the.lists@mgm51.com>, <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: postfix vs. qmail? Message-ID: <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNMEOHFBAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <200506290913180129.03B76DAC@sentry.24cl.com>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of MikeM >Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 6:13 AM >To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org >Subject: Re: postfix vs. qmail? > > >On 6/29/2005 at 8:48 AM brian.barto@spectrum-health.org wrote: > >|For one who wants to host email accounts for multiple domains, which >is >|better? I've started installing and configuring qmail according to the >|tutorial on qmailrocks.org but i'm wondering if i should stop and >consider >|postfix before pressing on. > ============= > >I started using qmail but eventually switched to Postfix. I found that >qmail required several [conflicting] patches to get the feature level I >wanted. I also did not like the need to move my box towards what djb >thought a *nix box should be set up. Postfix seems to want to just >drop in to a standard environment. But the items that really made the >choice easy for me are that the Postfix mailing list is excellent, and >that Postfix development is still alive. > >I host multiple virtual domains with Postfix (and Courier-IMAP for the >pop3 amd imap support). > > We use uw-imap and sendmail and host many thousands of mailboxes. One of the issues with the maildir format that postfix and courier-imap use is that it requires more disk writes for each piece of mail your running through a mailbox. Obviously, like many technical issues, you can throw money at the problem (in hardware investment) and it will go away. :-) One other thing you should consider if your really intending on setting up multiple domains and charging money for them (as opposed to just doinking with a mailserver in your home) is going to a three-mailserver setup. Use one mailserver specifically for receiving and sending mail from the Internet proper, use one for the user mailboxes and user SMTP, and use one for the webinterface. The reason for this is that you really need to run spam and virus scanning on the mailserver that is published as the SMTP server for your domains, and you will find that for every 1 piece of legitimate mail that you receive from the Internet and deliver to your users mailbox, you will get 9 others that are spam or viruses or junk. Because of the AV and spam scanning, this server is also the most prone to taking a dump. When it goes offline, you don't want all your users calling you and screaming when their mail clients all start spitting errors back to them. You also want the webinterface separate because of the simple reason that the best webinterfaces are the most complex, because they do the most for the user. Sure, you can field a simple webinterface like Open Webmail, but this is pretty bare-bones compared to somethng like Horde/IMP And while Horde/IMP is a long, bitchy, involved and complex setup, if you do it right your users will love it, and will most likely come to utterly depend on it for handling mail and scheduling. This is what you really want, the name of the game here is customer retention, and you want to make it easy for customers to get entangled with your systems and difficult for them to get out. And the best way to do this is to offer them a schmorgasboard of things to choose from. A stripped down webinterface is simple to setup and administer, but it is also very easy for a customer to walk away from. By contrast an interface that will do everything for them, is difficult to walk away from once they start depending on it doing everything for them! :-) Why do you think AOL still has millions of customers while charging double the going rate for dialup? Ted
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