From: Keith Matthews (postfixfrequentous.co.uk)
Date: Tue Jul 19 2005 - 11:53:50 CDT

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On Tue, 19 Jul 2005 11:42:12 -0500
Nathanael Hoyle <nhoylespeedexpress.net> wrote:

>
> I hesitate to ask a question which may spark a religous war (which is
> not the intent), and would like to ask, insofar as possible, that
> answers be primarily quantitative and not qualitative. I am currently
> running a couple of Postfix servers (one of which runs a single domain
> and delivers all mail to real system accounts, piece of cake), the
> other of which is a hosting server which handles numerous virtual
> domains with account information stored in a mysql database and
> virtual user mail delivery. I have seen numerous articles/tutorials
> on setup of Postfix for use with a MySQL backend and am familiar with
> what it can do.
>
> Lately, I have noticed on this list a lot of traffic from people using
> LDAP of some flavor as the backend to Postfix for the account info.
> My question really, is what is(are) the (dis)advantage(s) of using
> LDAP vs. using MySQL. Is it simply another way to skin the same cat,
> or does it allow for anything more/different/better? I know the
> question probably sounds a bit naive, but I have fairly little
> experience with LDAP in general and am not sure what it might offer me
> that I would be remiss to ignore. I'm looking for both
> (dis)advantages related to strictly Postfix usage (i.e. performance,
> ease of admin, etc), and secondary benefits (i.e. "LDAP works great
> with blah-blah-blah which we also use, and it makes life easier having
> all the info in one place").
>

Oh dear, and I thought this subject had been beaten to death.

I think it's best to summarise the main factors as

1. What you are familiar with

2. the extent to which you want to integrate other information with the
   mail system data (e.g. login verification)

3. the extent to which you want to take an 'off the shelf' solution and
   implement it quickly.

LDAP is favoured by integration, MySQL by off the shelf solutions.

Peformance wise there is (probably) some benefit in LDAP but only the
busiest sites are likely to notice the difference and even they might
have to look hard.

Folks, I think we've got to the stage where this needs to go in the FAQ.

--
I do not reply to directly addressed mail unless it is clearly a matter
that should be dealt with off-list.

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