Which MTA to use on OpenBSD, postfix or qmail?

[nuttervm]

I want to install a mail server on one of my machines and have been focusing on qmail and postfix. From what i've read postfix is easier to set up, but qmail is supposedly more secure. One huge bonus in postfix is that it is already in the openbsd ports collection. I'm willing to read plenty of manpages and do my homework, but i don't want my hobby to become a full time job.

I'd like to hear your experiences in setting up a MTA under openbsd

 

[Mucman]

This probably won't help you at all but I will share my experience

The only MTA I have experience with is qmail. Although I have heard great things about postfix. I installed qmail on my FreeBSD box, and I did it by following the instructions at lifewithqmail. I am pretty certain that if you follow the same instructions it will work in OpenBSD too. So far the machine has been up an running for 54 days straight without a hitch. It only processes around 50-100 E-mails per day, but it does it very well .

 

[n0cmonkey]

You know this is a flame war waiting to happen right?

Either would be fine. I haventn played with postfix enough (not enough time or energy), but qmail only takes about 20min to setup. Unless you add in the proper limits... In which case, its taken me like 6 months and Im not done

 

[Mucman]

the bonus of qmail is that you get to feed Dan Bernstein's ego by being another qmail user

The guy is a nutbar, but man he can write some good programs

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Mucman
the bonus of qmail is that you get to feed Dan Bernstein's ego by being another qmail user

The guy is a nutbar, but man he can write some good programs

Name a good programmer that isnt an ass in his or her own way.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

dont think there are enough people here to start a flamewar, didnt you know anandtech is 99.995% MS fanboys?

i use exim but i have an extremely simple setup. works great though.

 

[Mucman]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Mucman
the bonus of qmail is that you get to feed Dan Bernstein's ego by being another qmail user

The guy is a nutbar, but man he can write some good programs

Name a good programmer that isnt an ass in his or her own way.

Damn... need to be a jerk to get the women... now I need to be a jerk to be a good programmer!

Life sucks for the good guys

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
dont think there are enough people here to start a flamewar, didnt you know anandtech is 99.995% MS fanboys?

i use exim but i have an extremely simple setup. works great though.

Yeah, I know, but its still a flame war topic

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Mucman

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Mucman
the bonus of qmail is that you get to feed Dan Bernstein's ego by being another qmail user

The guy is a nutbar, but man he can write some good programs

Name a good programmer that isnt an ass in his or her own way.

Damn... need to be a jerk to get the women... now I need to be a jerk to be a good programmer!

Life sucks for the good guys

No, its just the easiest way to get noticed. Not necessarily the best. I know a couple of great programmers that arent asses, but they arent as widely known

 

[Mucman]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Mucman

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Mucman
the bonus of qmail is that you get to feed Dan Bernstein's ego by being another qmail user

The guy is a nutbar, but man he can write some good programs

Name a good programmer that isnt an ass in his or her own way.

Damn... need to be a jerk to get the women... now I need to be a jerk to be a good programmer!

Life sucks for the good guys

No, its just the easiest way to get noticed. Not necessarily the best. I know a couple of great programmers that arent asses, but they arent as widely known

That's ok... I prefer being invisible

 

[Sunner]

I've heard Theo DeRaadt is a really nice guy

 

[nuttervm]

theo seems like a really nice guy

My reservations stem from comments like the one N0c made about how it takes alot of time and expertise to set up and secure qmail properly. I began reading lifewithqmail before posting this thread, and thought to myself, this doesn't seem very simplistic. I prefer the BSD way of only having a few minimal features in the beginning and being secure, and only gaining the added features by specifically enabling them.

I can use webmin to get either/both of them up and running i think, but i'd rather it work proerly out of the box and be able to tweak it out at my leisure. I just reinstalled Obsd current last nite on a test box and will install postfix from ports as a test run.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: nuttervm
theo seems like a really nice guy

My reservations stem from comments like the one N0c made about how it takes alot of time and expertise to set up and secure qmail properly. I began reading lifewithqmail before posting this thread, and thought to myself, this doesn't seem very simplistic. I prefer the BSD way of only having a few minimal features in the beginning and being secure, and only gaining the added features by specifically enabling them.

I can use webmin to get either/both of them up and running i think, but i'd rather it work proerly out of the box and be able to tweak it out at my leisure. I just reinstalled Obsd current last nite on a test box and will install postfix from ports as a test run.

A working qmail installation is easy. Setting up limits is tough because I cant find much documentation on it. Most people probably wont need it though.

 

[nuttervm]

by limits do you mean account size limits? I thought with qmail you had to use unix's built in file quota system.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: nuttervm
by limits do you mean account size limits? I thought with qmail you had to use unix's built in file quota system.

quotas, cpu, and memory limits. Yes, you have to use the ones built into the OS, but I couldnt find any docs with good information on how to go about it and recommendations...

 

[Mucman]

I found quotas easy to setup using the .qmail which has the contents :

| /usr/local/bin/deliverquota ./Maildir 50000000S

the cpu stuff I don't have a sniff on how to do though

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Mucman
I found quotas easy to setup using the .qmail which has the contents :

| /usr/local/bin/deliverquota ./Maildir 50000000S

the cpu stuff I don't have a sniff on how to do though

quoatas are fine, but the cpu and memory limits are tougher. I think an rlimit or a ulimit (Im tired and forget the difference offhand) would be the way to go, but what do you set them too? Thats the problem I had, what should I use as settings since I know very little about it? Not enough documentation...

 

[nuttervm]

yeah, I might use disk quotas, but I wont want to have any cpu or ram limits. I have lots of unix boxen so this one should be a dedicated mailserver and/or mail/webserver that won't recieve all that much traffic. It is a good thing to learn, but i have no real use for it.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: nuttervm
yeah, I might use disk quotas, but I wont want to have any cpu or ram limits. I have lots of unix boxen so this one should be a dedicated mailserver and/or mail/webserver that won't recieve all that much traffic. It is a good thing to learn, but i have no real use for it.

Unless someone it out to get you