Sendmail replacements?

Thu Feb 13 11:07:08 PST 2003

Quoting Roy Kim (rkim at networktology.com):
> Postfix is an excelent choice for replacing sendmail.
> http://www.postfix.org
> Features:
> It runs as a non-root user.

Sendmail 8.12 doesn't run as root.  Hell, without local
deliveries and with a plug to make port25 connections go high
(ipfilter), NO sendmail needed to run as root.

> It runs as multiple processes.
Sendmail doesn't spawn multiple processes, saving memory and overhead.

> It has a human readable config file.
With a pretty GUI, the most Jr Admin can run sendmail Pro,
   nobody should read sendmail.cf, the m4 file generates it
   (sendmail.cf analogous to readign the "ls(1)" binary.  You want
   to change the ls.c source to effect changes in the ls(1) binary.).

I've used config files based on the same 25 line .m4 files for
10 years.

> It runs MUCH faster than sendmail.
Sendmail 8.11 is faster than Postfix, once tuned. (Had a job
where a postfix guy claimed this too.  His postfix and machine
were well tuned and smoked sendmail.  10 minutes of sendmail
changes made that different).  I enjoy the myth, but repetition
won't make it true.  8.12 can smoke 8.12 esp on a gateway (no
local deliveries).

Sendmail has paid fulltime developers and a large .org group
working on it.  I can find plenty of Sendmail admins about anywhere
in the country (if you're looking in the bay, I'm in Oakland :).
Sendmail has commercial products and support.  I'm not in love
with the product, it could be better and should be, but if a
secretary can handle managing the IMAP server and adding/removing
users it's good.  If s/he can add/remove access map entries and
aliases, all the better (though those really want to be in LDAP
for all to share).

It's actively developed; I use Milters (mail filter API programs)
to scan for and block spam during the SMTP connection (never enters
my site).  I could run anti-virus milters but I don't use Outlook.

I've also had folks complain that "sendmail is too complex! By
the way, can you have it only send > 100k messages after 8PM
when my ISDN rate is cheaper?"  (yes and yes).

It's nice to have all those switches available.  98% of installs
will change 2% of the defaults, though.  I've used sendmail at
small businesses and I've used them at some excessively large
mail environments.

If you need an appliance and are okay with black boxes, mirapoint
runs an IMAP server on a FreeBSD box and backups work fine upto
63GB or so.

Exim and Postfix are worth looking at if you want to look at
something.  QMail 2, if it ever comes out, looks interesting.