[GLLUG] Postfix or Exim?

[Ian Fitzpatrick]

Scott said...
> Perhaps the following article is somewhat topical from a legal
> vantage point?
> http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/01/1425221&tid=187

That article kind of struck me as FUD when I originally saw it, but I  
never really checked it out any further.  Now I have, and basically  
it seems like as long as you have a defined data retention policy  
(say, we destroy everything after 30 days) you are OK.  If you break  
your own policy you are in trouble.  And the second that you suspect  
you will be involved in a federal case, you have to start keeping  
emails permanently or you are also in trouble.

It looks like there is some kind of safe harbor clause, and a section  
about "best effort"...so you could get your lawyers arguging about  
that I guess.  Anyway, it's something to think about, I may run it by  
our company's counsel while I do my planning.  Definitely not enough  
reason to keep from rolling my own mail server though.

> I would also wonder about the business economics in
> terms of maintaining an e-mail server at 100%
> over the long-run given the vagaries of spam, etc.

I have just been continuously frustrated with hosted email  
solutions.  In addition to Network Solutions, who are just  
incompetent, we also use Hostmysite who are actually a pretty great  
company to work with in general.  But even with them I have problems,  
I've been trying to work with them the last couple days about their  
spam firewall issuing false positives against one of our managers and  
it hasn't gone well.  I hate being stuck between management and  
another support company.

It's time to do it myself, and be the one who is in control.

> For me, 4 days that I could spend doing things with my kids or do  
> something
> a bit more innovative than maintain a email server is a very precious
> amount of time.

For this geek, YES learning how to configure a MTA is my idea of  
fun.  I don't have any kids to play with, so Postfix or Exim will  
just have have to suffice ;)  Seriously though, there are several  
factors technological and non-technological (company culture and  
politics) that make doing it myself the right choice.  Let's just  
leave it at that.


Thanks Matt and Marshall for your detailed respones.  What I'm taking  
away from your replies is that postfix is a little simpler to  
configure but exim might be a little more flexible in the long run?   
Would that be a fair description of their main difference?

I think Qmail and Sendmail are definitely off the table.

Cheers,
Ian Fitzpatrick