Re: need someone to sell me their mail server for OpenBSD

[Toni Mueller <openbsd-misc_(_at_)_oeko_(_dot_)_net>]

Hello,

On Thu, Dec 28, 2000 at 10:20:03AM -0500, Michael Stella wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 28, 2000 at 12:42:50, Toni Mueller said...
> > we like qmail a lot, but it still has some problems left/features
> > missing. You may want to look at www.qmail.org to get an idea.
> I'm curious as to what you think is missing in qmail.

since there were several questions of this kind, I think I should
post a public reply.

> Personally, I use qmail with the LDAP and SPAMCONTROL patches,
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  This illustrates parts of it. Most people I know of don't go
  with the stock qmail but apply a set of patches. This, in turn,
  is not exactly for beginners.

Taken from a different answer:
--- me:
well, first I find that there is a number of patches missing in the
std qmail distro, at least big-dns and big-todo, and also, for the
"casual" Linux user, dirsync. Then there are a number of features
missing, imho. Like early denying of mail that should be denied
by policy. Can't remember properly, but afaik qmail currently
first swallows a message, then decides to not relay it, then
trying to bounce it instead of telling the offender that it won't
relay the message in the beginning and not accept it in the first
place. Another feature much wanted everywhere is more flexibility,
eg. a std ldap connector or a hook to stuff a virus scanner in, or
so. People have been ingenious to add all sorts of stuff to qmail,
but it requires more or less handwork and is far less ready
out-of-the-box than is eg. exim or zmailer, or even a recent
sendmail. Also, to really use qmail you're well advised to also
take a look at the other stuff DJB publishes. Unfortunately the
install docs in qmail (and also the license) don't permit building
packages that install "all the good stuff", but describe how to
cling to rather ancient, inflexible and also less stable setups,
and enforce them (with "sendmail compatibility" as a named goal
I actually don't have for years now).
   
Last but not least qmail and most of the other DJB stuff has
really weird licensing. Fixing this up and placing it all under
BSD or GPL would be A GOOD THING, imho. Currently you find a
lot of useful bits and pieces at his site, but almost every
piece of it has a different license, sometimes even varying
from release to release... :(

That notwithstanding we use qmail almost exclusively, but also
do look into zmailer which looks very interesting, too...
----- clip

This licensing stuff imho prevents widespread commercial
adoption of qmail and drives people to postfix instead.
No vendor I talked to wants to risk anything here, or
even rely on the health or preferences of DJB, to begin with.
[side note] A license that insists on an inetd based
install with sendmail utmost compatibility (dotforward etc)
imho waives most of the real benefits and power of qmail.
I do understand, however, that this mainly is a side effect
of DJB wanting to avoid being tied up in support issues.

> > fetchmail is a can of worms, imho. Especially together with your
> > local MTA and IP based relay control you might suddenly find
> > yourself happily relaying everything... Also, fetchmail doesn't
> > interact too well with dial on demand, imho (what do you have?).
> 
> Fetchmail works great with dial on demand.  You put 'fetchmail -q' in your
> ip-down script, and 'fetchmail -d <time>' in your ip-up script.  Easy.

Well, this only works if you have:
- your timeout is large enough so the link doesn't go down while
  fetching mail
- a PPP link from the same box that fetchmail is running on

It doesn't work well, however, if you run fetchmail on one box
and a dial-on-demand ISDN router across your Ethernet, for
example. You also don't want to run fetchmail every few minutes
the line goes up or down in such an environment even if you
could start it on every line-up if you have a few dozen users
(but not enough brains or money to get a _real_ Internet
connection).

Also, if you use fetchmail and stuff the mail into localhost:smtp,
you defeat your average IP based relay control in qmail...


Best Regards,
--Toni++