OT: building new server, need MTA advice

[Glenn Steen]

On 29/01/07, Chris Yuzik <itdept at fractalweb.com> wrote:
> We're in the process of building what will be our new web and mail
> server. We will be hosting several virtual domains and each will have
> anywhere from a few to a couple of hundred email users. Obviously we
> will be running MailScanner and also MailWatch. The box is running
> CentOS 4.4 (it's like RHEL).
>
> Since we're starting fresh on this box, we're not necessarily married to
> Sendmail like on our other servers. We could stick with Sendmail, or we
> could move over to Postfix or Exim (anything else worth considering?).
> We'd like to be able to add new spam-fighting features as they come out,
> such as the greet-pause and such. Over the years we've used Sendmail,
> I've found it a bear to tweak so have done the absolute minimum with it.
> We're looking for something that is secure, efficient, maintained (which
> rules out qmail) and easy to administer. Whatever we look at needs to
> play very nicely with MailScanner or it's not worth considering.
> Finally, (and I'm not sure it makes a difference to the MTA), we need
> our users to be able to log in with the "username at domain.tld" format
> because that's what they use now and I don't want to have to change
> hundreds of user's email client settings.
>
> Now for the big question: Is there an MTA that should we consider using
> instead of Sendmail?
>
> Thanks,
> Chris

If you are truly unsatisfied with your current MTA, I'd sugegst that
you at least look at both Exim and Postfix, perhaps testing them on a
testrigg that you feed a copy of your normal mails or similar.

Unsurprisingly, I'd further recommend Postfix for things like sane
config file syntax/ease of configuration, security and to some extent
elegance. In the bargain you get a sometimes less than civil
to-and-fro between Postfix developers and us, but ... that is nothing
to get real excited about. And there might be some jibes/jeering from
certain Sendmail users:-):-).
So far (don't rightly remember how many years:) Jules has provided
excellent Postfix support in MailScanner, and there is not much
speaking for a change in this area.

But I certainly think it best if you form your own opinion by
experimentation/experience:-).

Cheers
-- 
-- Glenn
email: glenn < dot > steen < at > gmail < dot > com
work: glenn < dot > steen < at > ap1 < dot > se