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Postfix Archives: Re: Postfix Maintenance?

Re: Postfix Maintenance?

Subject: Re: Postfix Maintenance?
From: Simon J Mudd (sjmuddpobox.com)
Date: Mon Jan 03 2000 - 14:17:50 CST

Holger.Jahndachser.dpd.de (Holger Jahn) writes:

> I'm currently very interested in replacing our sendmail-cf-monster with
> an easier to administer MTA.

A lot of people are in a similar situation.

> But to take care for the long term aspects of my planned mail software
> change, it's important for me to know who's doing the further
> maintenance for Postfix.
>
> Is there any group of developers out there (or is the grade of maturity
> that high already to declare postfix' stability at 101%? ;-))
>

> And, BTW, could you please give me any links to comparisons of the the
> different MTA's (see above)?

If you look at the mail archives of this list, there was a comparison
between qmail and postfix I think by Bennett Todd not so long ago. I
vaguely remember comparisons with exim or zmailer too on this list.
Obviously if you ask on this list most people could be biased towards
postfix, but often taste has a role in the decision of the MTA to be used.

> To be honest, I'm a little bit confused about how to find the
> "right-sized" software for my purpose (~200 mailusers in 7 virtual
> domains). Since these MTA's are really complex, it's unfortunately not
> as easy as just "rpm -i" the software, play around a little bit with,
> and decide what to use at last.... sad.... snief.... - but that's how
> life looks in the post bottle-messaged-days, I guess.

200 mail users (as Wietse says) is not a lot. People on this list
have reported daily mail traffic over 100,000+ messages, and I think
postfix with the right hardware can go quite a lot higer. This is probably
a different league to the traffic you need to process, so yes postfix
has lots of "spare capacity".

You mention having a complicated setup. Perhaps if you explain what is
complicated you'll get a better answer to the question of if postfix "can
do the job". As Wietse says, sendmail is much more flexible than postfix
and can do some things that postfix can't. However for most uses postfix
is more than sufficient for your needs.

Several BIG companies appear to be exclusively using postfix at least to
receive their incoming mail over the Internet. I've noticed Compaq and HP,
but I'm sure there are many more.

Regarding maintence releases, Wietse has been very prompt in fixing any bugs
which have been found, though with respect these having been little more
than minor glitches. Most of the changes have been adding functionality
to the existing product, and usually this is to "please" the more demanding
users.

Try postfix and see. You'll find that it isn't difficult to configure
and certainly is much easier to understand than sendmail's .cf file.

If you need a postfix rpm, look at http://www.alltrading.es/postfix/RPMS/i386
I try to build postfix packages for redhat linux. The packages do require
minor tweaks to the main.cf file before working, but in any case you'll need
to set up various things anyway, so that shouldn't be a worry.

I think there are a few people on this list still running 199903xx versions
of postfix. Why? Because it's not broke, and if it's not broke and does
what you want then don't fix it. That said if you want the new stuff you'll
have to upgrade maybe every month or so, but that depends on your desire to
tinker. For a production mail server that's probably not something to
recommend.

Give it a test drive. I think you'll be happy with the result. If you
have the time and inclination, by all means try the competitors: they
may suit your needs better.

Regards,

Simon

p.s. I've been using postfix since 12/97 and having switched haven't had any
reason/need to want to change back to sendmail. 

-- 
Simon J Mudd, Madrid SPAIN    Tel: +34-91-408 4878    email: sjmuddpobox.com

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