[TriLUG] other Mail tranport agents than sendmail

Joseph Tate jtate at dragonstrider.com
Sat Mar 6 19:46:03 EST 2004


Jon Carnes wrote:

>Well Sendmail gets a bad rap but it is the die-hard of the MTA world.
>Most distro's install Sendmail so that it just works right out of the
>box - no config mucking needed, just add DNS.
>
>Postfix is lauded because of its security, but recently I've personally
>discovered that on a heavy use system the latest Sendmail versions are
>faster and handle the large loads with less resources. That's important
>to me because of the consulting work I do.  The Postfix configuration
>files are much saner than Sendmails and that's fairly important to folks
>who just want to play with an MTA. 
>
>Exim is very secure and also operates well under load, almost as well as
>Sendmail. It's not as secure as Postfix, and it's configuration files
>are bit more wacky, but it's extremely powerful and makes a good
>replacement for Sendmail. If I was going to dump Sendmail, this would be
>my choice for a replacement.
>
>Qmail.... Well, it's good. Its fast. It does a bit of everything. It's
>not *quite* OpenSource, and the key developer is known for being an
>arrogant piss-ant. If it weren't for that excess baggage I would say
>give it a try.
>
>Those are the big four used out in industry (available on Linux).  There
>are hundreds more, but these four get most of the action, and deservedly
>so.
>
>  
>

Don't forget Courier.  It's a MTA, as well as a MDA.  I've never used 
it, but it's supposed to be fast, easy to configure, and secure.  But 
I've never used it in any capacity.  Postfix is my MTA of choice, but I 
don't run the kinds of volumes that Jon mentions.  (If I did, I'd move 
Spam Assassin and Cyrus IMAP to different boxes).

Joseph



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