I'm mildly interested in the answer to this: we're still biased towards exim, as it's what we're used to and vaguely locally maintained. But postfix comes as default with SuSE which is our default OS these days. If anyone has any compelling arguments why I should choose one of these over the other I'd love to hear them.
Sendmail is rather baroque (we're still using it in places but *I* don't understand our config properly), qmail too chatty for my tastes and Exchange an abomination. I don't really know the others.
Exim has the nice feature of being able to tell you what it'd do with a mail without actually sending it through the system. Possibly one of the few benefits of its monolithic architecture, but it's a godsend when debugging complex configurations.
My (decade-old l-) memory of Sendmail says it has that feature too (of course it also has a fairly monolithic architecture). Actually I'd venture to suggest it's a necessary basic feature of any MTA l-)
Sendmail is rather baroque (we're still using it in places but *I* don't understand our config properly
I suspect that if you do understand your Sendmail config it's not covering all the cases. [I still bear the mental scars of the Sendmail maps we had to handle JNT grey book/big endian addresses (as well as bang paths, BITNET, and the like) when I was doing the Oxford version of your job.]
[X] I know what MTA stands for and what one is, and I've heard of some of these, but I do not know enough about them to have an opinion, nor do I actually know which one my Hermes account at the University actually uses.
[X] I voted "Huh?" because I am nosey enough to want to see the other answers to the poll.
for future reference, you don't have to vote to get to see the results - you can click the poll # line, which takes you to a page where you can click View Poll Results.
Along with "I don't run my own MTA, so I never felt compelled to examine them in enough detail to make an informed choice as to which was 'best' (or most appropriate for my hypothetical needs)".
... I have a horrible feeling I've lost my Advanced Users Guide. I know I had it 7 years ago, but it might not have made the move to America with me. Oh no :-(
Yup... I have my Beeb; I have the analogue joysticks; I have an 80DD floppy drive and around 100 floppies... but I seem to have lost the manuals. Shame :-(
(My Beeb is still (occasionally) in use: I still use my Music 4000 keyboard to stop myself completely forgetting how to play the piano, and listen to my AMPLE music, which I can't simply digitally sample because of this problem (http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/86714.html?thread=371898#t371898).)
I will go so far as to remove other MTAs and install Exim in favour where I can.
Postfix is all very well, but as Rob said, without 'exim4 -bt' I'd be lost. Also, I've arranged my brain in such a way that sendmail is now fundamentally incompatible with my personal I/O. Although I do hear that they have a nice line in M4 (yeesh) configuration systems for sendmail these days.
Yes, I think the pile of M4 to generate sendmail.cf has been there for a decade. You'd think that it'd be a warning sign that your configuration language was too crazy that you needed to do that, mind...
My OS comes with real honest-to-Cthulhu sendmail. I run exim, but keep wondering whether I should consider switching to Postfix or qmail since my only reason for choosing exim in the first place is that it was written by Phil Hazel.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:17 pm (UTC)I install and configure it, deliberately, on any Linux I install (which is usually Fedora, or occasionally, Red Hat/Centos).
And remember, PP is John Cleese.
Date: 2009-05-07 04:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:16 pm (UTC)Sendmail is rather baroque (we're still using it in places but *I* don't understand our config properly), qmail too chatty for my tastes and Exchange an abomination. I don't really know the others.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 05:15 pm (UTC)% sendmail -bt
ADDRESS TEST MODE (ruleset 3 NOT automatically invoked)
Enter <ruleset> <address>
> 3,0 someluser@somewhereelse.com
canonify input: someluser @ somewhereelse . com
Canonify2 input: someluser < @ somewhereelse . com >
Canonify2 returns: someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
canonify returns: someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
parse input: someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
Parse0 input: someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
Parse0 returns: someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
ParseLocal input: someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
ParseLocal returns: someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
Parse1 input: someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
Mailertable input: < somewhereelse . com > someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
Mailertable input: somewhereelse . < com > someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
Mailertable returns: someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
Mailertable returns: someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
MailerToTriple input: < mailgate > someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
MailerToTriple returns: $# relay $@ mailgate $: someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
Parse1 returns: $# relay $@ mailgate $: someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
parse returns: $# relay $@ mailgate $: someluser < @ somewhereelse . com . >
Oh good; external mail is sent to my mailgate machine
> 3,0 sweh
canonify input: sweh
Canonify2 input: sweh
Canonify2 returns: sweh
canonify returns: sweh
parse input: sweh
Parse0 input: sweh
Parse0 returns: sweh
ParseLocal input: sweh
ParseLocal returns: sweh
Parse1 input: sweh
Parse1 returns: $# local $: sweh
parse returns: $# local $: sweh
Even better, local mail is delivered locally :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:43 pm (UTC)I suspect that if you do understand your Sendmail config it's not covering all the cases. [I still bear the mental scars of the Sendmail maps we had to handle JNT grey book/big endian addresses (as well as bang paths, BITNET, and the like) when I was doing the Oxford version of your job.]
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:34 pm (UTC)[X] I voted "Huh?" because I am nosey enough to want to see the other answers to the poll.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 04:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-08 08:54 am (UTC)Along with "I don't run my own MTA, so I never felt compelled to examine them in enough detail to make an informed choice as to which was 'best' (or most appropriate for my hypothetical needs)".
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 05:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 05:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-08 02:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-08 06:34 am (UTC)(My Beeb is still (occasionally) in use: I still use my Music 4000 keyboard to stop myself completely forgetting how to play the piano, and listen to my AMPLE music, which I can't simply digitally sample because of this problem (http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/86714.html?thread=371898#t371898).)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 06:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 06:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-08 08:52 am (UTC)Postfix is all very well, but as Rob said, without 'exim4 -bt' I'd be lost. Also, I've arranged my brain in such a way that sendmail is now fundamentally incompatible with my personal I/O. Although I do hear that they have a nice line in M4 (yeesh) configuration systems for sendmail these days.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-08 10:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-09 11:40 pm (UTC)