CentOS Community,
I was wondering if anyone had a good resource or procedure for a step by step in installing a mail server with Centos. There ARE documents on google, however almost all that i've found were outdated from 2005. Does anyone know where I can find this type of document for a mailserver Postfix + MySQL + SpamAssassin + ClamAV + Squirrelmail + Postfixadmin, etc?
http://www.howtoforge.com/virtual-users-and-domains-with-postfix-courier-mys...
On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 8:10 AM, Jonathan Vomacka juvix88@gmail.com wrote:
CentOS Community,
I was wondering if anyone had a good resource or procedure for a step by step in installing a mail server with Centos. There ARE documents on google, however almost all that i've found were outdated from 2005. Does anyone know where I can find this type of document for a mailserver Postfix + MySQL + SpamAssassin + ClamAV + Squirrelmail + Postfixadmin, etc? _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Am 09.11.2011 07:19, schrieb Leon Jacobs:
http://www.howtoforge.com/virtual-users-and-domains-with-postfix-courier-mys...
A strong NO!
That "howto" tinstructs to run through source installs on CentOS. A really bad habit. Even completeley unnecessary.
And nobody wants courier imap any longer as it is simply slow compared to dovecot or cyrus-imapd.
Alexander
On Wed, Nov 09, 2011 at 09:46:51AM +0100, Alexander Dalloz wrote:
Am 09.11.2011 07:19, schrieb Leon Jacobs:
A strong NO!
Emphatically seconded.
That "howto" tinstructs to run through source installs on CentOS. A really bad habit. Even completeley unnecessary.
Most of the howto's I've seen from howtoscrewupaperfectlygoodserverforge.com should be avoided like an STD; this one is a perfect example. Any "howto" that advocates disabling selinux was written by someone that is either incompetent or just plain lazy; either quality is undesired in an admin.
It would be in the best interests of all parties if such "howto" articles from howtoforge.com were avoided here in the future.
John -- Politics is just show business for ugly people.
-- Jay Leno
On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 10:58 AM, John R. Dennison jrd@gerdesas.com wrote:
On Wed, Nov 09, 2011 at 09:46:51AM +0100, Alexander Dalloz wrote:
Am 09.11.2011 07:19, schrieb Leon Jacobs:
A strong NO!
Emphatically seconded.
Forgetting to add "A quick google came up with..." and not reading the article, ill take the slap in the face this time. >.<
Le 09/11/2011 10:02, Leon Jacobs a écrit :
On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 10:58 AM, John R. Dennisonjrd@gerdesas.com wrote:
On Wed, Nov 09, 2011 at 09:46:51AM +0100, Alexander Dalloz wrote:
Am 09.11.2011 07:19, schrieb Leon Jacobs:
A strong NO!
Emphatically seconded.
Forgetting to add "A quick google came up with..." and not reading the article, ill take the slap in the face this time.>.<
These two links, even if I read them rapidly, seem more accurate : http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/postfix http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Amavisd
Alain
On Wed, 2011-11-09 at 02:58 -0600, John R. Dennison wrote:
On Wed, Nov 09, 2011 at 09:46:51AM +0100, Alexander Dalloz wrote:
Am 09.11.2011 07:19, schrieb Leon Jacobs A strong NO!
Emphatically seconded.
+1
Especially since CentOS 6 gives you pretty recent versions of everything.
On 11/08/11 10:10 PM, Jonathan Vomacka wrote:
I was wondering if anyone had a good resource or procedure for a step by step in installing a mail server with Centos. There ARE documents on google, however almost all that i've found were outdated from 2005. Does anyone know where I can find this type of document for a mailserver Postfix + MySQL + SpamAssassin + ClamAV + Squirrelmail + Postfixadmin, etc?
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Deployment... is as good a place to start as any.
not sure why mysql has to do with email servers.... yes, I know, you _can_ configure email servers to use SQL databases as the message stores, but I really don't think you _should_ do that, it just adds more overhead.
spamassassin has its own documentation, and frankly, its a big complex set of tools, there's no one 'right' way to set it up, as spam is a big complex problem. each mail administrator will have to weigh the pros and cons of the various options and how acceptible they are to his environment. docs are here, http://spamassassin.apache.org/doc.html
squirrelmail is not actually a mail server, its a web based mail reader. its also not a standard part of the centos distribution. see http://squirrelmail.org/
postfixadmin, I dunno, never used it. I don't believe its supplied by CentOS, but its probably available from various third parties... I manage my mail servers with shell tools.
you left out an important part of a mail server, which is a mail user agent such as dovecot or cyrus, these provide the POP and IMAP protocols that a user mail client such as Thunderbird need to read the mail. the basics of setting these up should be covered in the redhat doc above.
On Wednesday, November 09, 2011 02:36 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
On 11/08/11 10:10 PM, Jonathan Vomacka wrote:
I was wondering if anyone had a good resource or procedure for a step by step in installing a mail server with Centos. There ARE documents on google, however almost all that i've found were outdated from 2005. Does anyone know where I can find this type of document for a mailserver Postfix + MySQL + SpamAssassin + ClamAV + Squirrelmail + Postfixadmin, etc?
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Deployment... is as good a place to start as any.
not sure why mysql has to do with email servers.... yes, I know, you _can_ configure email servers to use SQL databases as the message stores, but I really don't think you _should_ do that, it just adds more overhead.
It's not for storing messages, it's for the userinfo/mailstoremetadata/whateveryoucallit. There is only one other experiment that I know of in using a database for mail storage besides Exchange...like you say...just adds more overhead,points of failure.
you left out an important part of a mail server, which is a mail user agent such as dovecot or cyrus, these provide the POP and IMAP protocols that a user mail client such as Thunderbird need to read the mail. the basics of setting these up should be covered in the redhat doc above.
People still use Sam's stuff?!?
On 11/08/11 10:10 PM, Jonathan Vomacka wrote:
squirrelmail is not actually a mail server, its a web based mail reader. its also not a standard part of the centos distribution. see http://squirrelmail.org/
You sure about that? I've got a CentOS 5.6 system that I'm in the process of standing up, and installed Squirrelmail from the install media.
On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 8:10 AM, Jonathan Vomacka juvix88@gmail.com wrote:
CentOS Community,
I was wondering if anyone had a good resource or procedure for a step by step in installing a mail server with Centos. There ARE documents on google, however almost all that i've found were outdated from 2005. Does anyone know where I can find this type of document for a mailserver Postfix + MySQL + SpamAssassin + ClamAV + Squirrelmail + Postfixadmin, etc? _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Hi, Maybe, somebody could recommend any good books about complete mail server open source solution? Sorry for OT.
On 11/09/2011 10:10 AM, Marius Vaitiekunas wrote:
Hi, Maybe, somebody could recommend any good books about complete mail server open source solution? Sorry for OT.
I found the "Postfix: the Definitive Guide" book by Kyle D. Dent very useful to learn about Postfix. There is also "The Book of Postfix" by Ralf Hildebrandt and Patrick Koetter. Do a search on Amazon to find more references to Postfix.
Regards, Patrick
On Wed, 9 Nov 2011 20:33:23 Patrick Lists wrote:
On 11/09/2011 10:10 AM, Marius Vaitiekunas wrote:
Hi, Maybe, somebody could recommend any good books about complete mail server open source solution? Sorry for OT.
I found the "Postfix: the Definitive Guide" book by Kyle D. Dent very useful to learn about Postfix. There is also "The Book of Postfix" by Ralf Hildebrandt and Patrick Koetter. Do a search on Amazon to find more references to Postfix.
Regards, Patrick
+1 for K D Dent's book. I had a working mail setup (fetchmail - postfix - dovecot) from scratch in less time than I thought, having no previous experience at all with mail systems. Still have more to add on yet.
"Essential System Admin" by Aeleen Frisch gives a good overview, explanation of the stages or steps of mail systems, giving suggestions to appropriate software without confining itself to details of any one in particular. I found O'Reilly's e-book format very convenient to obtain. Delivery of books can take a while.
On Wed, 2011-11-09 at 01:10 -0500, Jonathan Vomacka wrote:
CentOS Community I was wondering if anyone had a good resource or procedure for a step by step in installing a mail server with Centos. There ARE documents on google, however almost all that i've found were outdated from 2005. Does anyone know where I can find this type of document for a mailserver Postfix + MySQL + SpamAssassin + ClamAV + Squirrelmail + Postfixadmin, etc?
MySQL has nothing to do with mail. If you can avoid using it - avoid it. The just-throw-everything-in-mysql approach to life has never made sense to me.
For CLAMAV you need to have clamd running and a milter. I'm not certain what milter's are current - when I set one up they were all had equally stale documentation. Does CentOS currently ship a working clamav milter?
SPAMAssasin is a monster and the documentation is *BAD*. But I've gotten it working. Just post specific questions.
Postfix is pretty straight-forward and the project documentation useful once you get used to its odd/unfriendly structure. There are numerous books about Postfix - do any of these do a better job at a drive through?
I have no idea what Postfixadmin is; I've never seen much point in an MTA admin tool. And MTA is pretty much setup and let it run.
Squirelmail is an application; just use their documentation [although I'd recommend Horde over Squirrel].
You don't mention a mail store [IMAP Server]? Such as Cyrus IMAP. Something for Postfix to deliver the mail too.
I have a document "WMOGAG" that has chapters on Cyrus and Postfix. It certainly isn't exhaustive, but it covers the stuff I've run into. More about Cyrus than Postfix. You might find it useful - and feedback is appreciated. http://sourceforge.net/projects/coils/files/WMOGAG-Coils.pdf/download
On 9.11.2011 13.23, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
For CLAMAV you need to have clamd running and a milter. I'm not certain what milter's are current - when I set one up they were all had equally stale documentation. Does CentOS currently ship a working clamav milter?
Hope this is relevant. I use a "dual Sendmail" setup with and amavisd-new - no milter at all, except greylist. The incoming mail is first processed by sendmail, then sent to amavisd-new on port 10024. Amavis handles spamassassin and clamd calls (and in my case, also f-secure virus checks as a backup) and returns the email (port 10025) to *another* sendmail instance, which then either sends the mail or files it in a local inbox.
http://www.ijs.si/software/amavisd/README.sendmail-dual.txt
Looks like there is no similar "dual" setup for postfix. This postfix tutorial does not look bad:
http://www.wowtutorial.org/tutorial/169.html
- Jussi
On 9.11.2011 14.04, Jussi Hirvi wrote:
Looks like there is no similar "dual" setup for postfix. This postfix tutorial does not look bad:
Uh, now I read some more of this thread and saw some (other) bad tutorials. This one is not so good either:
Install Amavisd-new
#cd /usr/ports/security/amavisd-new #make config #make install clean
No need for that, when you can do "yum install amavisd-new"! So please ignore "wowtutorial". :-)
- Jussi
On 11/9/2011 6:23 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
SPAMAssasin is a monster and the documentation is *BAD*. But I've gotten it working. Just post specific questions.
SpamAssassin is not THAT bad. There is a fair amount of info out there on how to integrate it with various mail servers. (http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/IntegratingSA). The SpamAssassin mailing list is also quite helpful.
On Wednesday, November 09, 2011 07:23 PM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
On Wed, 2011-11-09 at 01:10 -0500, Jonathan Vomacka wrote:
CentOS Community I was wondering if anyone had a good resource or procedure for a step by step in installing a mail server with Centos. There ARE documents on google, however almost all that i've found were outdated from 2005. Does anyone know where I can find this type of document for a mailserver Postfix + MySQL + SpamAssassin + ClamAV + Squirrelmail + Postfixadmin, etc?
MySQL has nothing to do with mail. If you can avoid using it - avoid it. The just-throw-everything-in-mysql approach to life has never made sense to me.
Maybe it does not have to but it sure is a wonderful part of a system when you host thousands or millions even of mailboxes and want to be able to run server farms/clusters that can lookup a shared userinfo database. Don't bother giving me crap about generating Berkerly DB files every fifteen minutes. Don't bother pointing to ldap too because by your definition for mysql, ldap has nothing to with mail too.
For CLAMAV you need to have clamd running and a milter. I'm not certain what milter's are current - when I set one up they were all had equally stale documentation. Does CentOS currently ship a working clamav milter?
RHEL/Centos ships zero milters...
I have no idea what Postfixadmin is; I've never seen much point in an MTA admin tool. And MTA is pretty much setup and let it run.
Yeah, for a small setup. And it is not an MTA admin tool. It is a userinfo admin tool. When you want shared userinfo databases for an MTA like postfix/sendmail/qmail/exim, you tend to use mysql or postgresql.
Squirelmail is an application; just use their documentation [although I'd recommend Horde over Squirrel].
Yes, horde + sieve + dovecot + dovecot sieve extension is kinda handy for generating filter recipes. Who needs crap like maildrop or procmail when dovecot provides the lda, the pop/imap servers and the glue between postfix and the userinfo db?
You don't mention a mail store [IMAP Server]? Such as Cyrus IMAP. Something for Postfix to deliver the mail too.
Mail store != imap server. Mail store = structure for mboxes/maildirs.
On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 6:48 PM, Christopher Chan christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk wrote:
For CLAMAV you need to have clamd running and a milter. I'm not certain what milter's are current - when I set one up they were all had equally stale documentation. Does CentOS currently ship a working clamav milter?
RHEL/Centos ships zero milters...
Rpmforge has MimeDefang and clamav packages. Not sure how hard it is to adapt MimeDefang to postscript but I think it is possible these days.
You don't mention a mail store [IMAP Server]? Such as Cyrus IMAP. Something for Postfix to deliver the mail too.
Mail store != imap server. Mail store = structure for mboxes/maildirs.
Cyrus is sort of its own thing with its own mail store.
On Friday, November 11, 2011 01:00 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 6:48 PM, Christopher Chan christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk wrote:
For CLAMAV you need to have clamd running and a milter. I'm not certain what milter's are current - when I set one up they were all had equally stale documentation. Does CentOS currently ship a working clamav milter?
RHEL/Centos ships zero milters...
Rpmforge has MimeDefang and clamav packages. Not sure how hard it is to adapt MimeDefang to postscript but I think it is possible these days.
You don't mention a mail store [IMAP Server]? Such as Cyrus IMAP. Something for Postfix to deliver the mail too.
Mail store != imap server. Mail store = structure for mboxes/maildirs.
Cyrus is sort of its own thing with its own mail store.
Sorry, I keep forgetting about that crap...
Never touched it and never wanted to after I heard the screams from a friend who used cyrus and swore by it until he got corrupt mailboxes. Had to help setup postfix, dovecot and vpopmail iirc.
On Fri, 2011-11-11 at 13:23 +0800, Christopher Chan wrote:
Sorry, I keep forgetting about that crap...
Never touched it and never wanted to after I heard the screams from a friend who used cyrus and swore by it until he got corrupt mailboxes. Had to help setup postfix, dovecot and vpopmail iirc.
---- been using cyrus-imapd for years - eats dovecot for lunch in terms of features/performance/reliability/scaling/flexibility and just about every other imaginable use for an IMAP server.
Might have thought it would be useful to have some firsthand experience before you labeled something as crap.
Craig
On Friday, November 11, 2011 01:28 PM, Craig White wrote:
On Fri, 2011-11-11 at 13:23 +0800, Christopher Chan wrote:
Sorry, I keep forgetting about that crap...
Never touched it and never wanted to after I heard the screams from a friend who used cyrus and swore by it until he got corrupt mailboxes. Had to help setup postfix, dovecot and vpopmail iirc.
been using cyrus-imapd for years - eats dovecot for lunch in terms of features/performance/reliability/scaling/flexibility and just about every other imaginable use for an IMAP server.
Hmm, I must give it a try one day then since it comes with RHEL/Centos.
Might have thought it would be useful to have some firsthand experience before you labeled something as crap.
True.
On Fri, 2011-11-11 at 13:38 +0800, Christopher Chan wrote:
On Friday, November 11, 2011 01:28 PM, Craig White wrote:
On Fri, 2011-11-11 at 13:23 +0800, Christopher Chan wrote:
Sorry, I keep forgetting about that crap...
Never touched it and never wanted to after I heard the screams from a friend who used cyrus and swore by it until he got corrupt mailboxes. Had to help setup postfix, dovecot and vpopmail iirc.
been using cyrus-imapd for years - eats dovecot for lunch in terms of features/performance/reliability/scaling/flexibility and just about every other imaginable use for an IMAP server.
Hmm, I must give it a try one day then since it comes with RHEL/Centos.
---- I should mention that even though RHEL (Fedora/CentOS/SL/etc.) uses the invoca.ch packages but they are older and never have the 'autocreate' patches.
I heavily recommend that you get the SRPM from invoca.ch directly (Simon - who I believe monitors this list) and rebuild (dead simple)
http://www.invoca.ch/pub/packages/cyrus-imapd/
The 'autocreate' patches are awesome. Here is info on what they do (and the patch code itself).
http://www.vx.sk/download/patches/cyrus-imapd/cyrus-imapd-2.4.4-autocreate-0...
but if you use Simon's packages, the autocreate patch is already included (no fuss, no muss).
Autocreate INBOX and subfolders on first LOGIN, first POST, auto 'sieve' rules and auto subscribe to various folders including 'shared' or 'public' folders
Craig
On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 12:13 AM, Craig White craigwhite@azapple.com wrote:
On Fri, 2011-11-11 at 13:38 +0800, Christopher Chan wrote:
been using cyrus-imapd for years - eats dovecot for lunch in terms of features/performance/reliability/scaling/flexibility and just about every other imaginable use for an IMAP server.
Hmm, I must give it a try one day then since it comes with RHEL/Centos.
I should mention that even though RHEL (Fedora/CentOS/SL/etc.) uses the invoca.ch packages but they are older and never have the 'autocreate' patches.
Have you looked at the ClearOS implementation which should come up running out of the box connected to an LDAP user base?
On Nov 11, 2011, at 6:24 AM, Les Mikesell wrote:
On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 12:13 AM, Craig White craigwhite@azapple.com wrote:
On Fri, 2011-11-11 at 13:38 +0800, Christopher Chan wrote:
been using cyrus-imapd for years - eats dovecot for lunch in terms of features/performance/reliability/scaling/flexibility and just about every other imaginable use for an IMAP server.
Hmm, I must give it a try one day then since it comes with RHEL/Centos.
I should mention that even though RHEL (Fedora/CentOS/SL/etc.) uses the invoca.ch packages but they are older and never have the 'autocreate' patches.
Have you looked at the ClearOS implementation which should come up running out of the box connected to an LDAP user base?
---- No but configuring cyrus-imapd & postfix for LDAP is trivial. In fact, once you get clued in to LDAP, you really don't want to go back to other auth/identity mechanisms
Craig
On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 9:11 AM, Craig White craig.white@ttiltd.com wrote:
Have you looked at the ClearOS implementation which should come up running out of the box connected to an LDAP user base?
No but configuring cyrus-imapd & postfix for LDAP is trivial. In fact, once you get clued in to LDAP, you really don't want to go back to other auth/identity mechanisms
I thought the last time you mentioned LDAP you said it was non-trivial to configure and had to be special-cased for every situation. Hence my interest in on that works out of the box. I'd be interested in your comparison to a hand-tuned version if you ever have time to look at it.
On Thu, 2011-11-10 at 23:13 -0700, Craig White wrote:
been using cyrus-imapd for years - eats dovecot for lunch in terms of features/performance/reliability/scaling/flexibility and just about every other imaginable use for an IMAP server.
Hmm, I must give it a try one day then since it comes with RHEL/Centos.
I should mention that even though RHEL (Fedora/CentOS/SL/etc.) uses the invoca.ch packages but they are older and never have the 'autocreate' patches. I heavily recommend that you get the SRPM from invoca.ch directly (Simon
- who I believe monitors this list) and rebuild (dead simple)
http://www.invoca.ch/pub/packages/cyrus-imapd/ The 'autocreate' patches are awesome. Here is info on what they do (and the patch code itself). http://www.vx.sk/download/patches/cyrus-imapd/cyrus-imapd-2.4.4-autocreate-0... but if you use Simon's packages, the autocreate patch is already included (no fuss, no muss). Autocreate INBOX and subfolders on first LOGIN, first POST, auto 'sieve' rules and auto subscribe to various folders including 'shared' or 'public' folders
+1 The shipped packages on most distributions are a bit lame; Simon's packages are the way to go. They also provision everything as Skiplist [Cyrus' preferred DB format] avoiding the ugliness that is Berkley DB [issue with which Cyrus has take a fair amount of the blame; most 'corrupt Cyrus databases' are corrupt BDB databases].
Delayed expunge, message expiration, full-text indexing, mod-sequence support, etc... Cyrus' feature set is very robust.
On Saturday, November 12, 2011 01:04 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
+1 The shipped packages on most distributions are a bit lame; Simon's packages are the way to go. They also provision everything as Skiplist [Cyrus' preferred DB format] avoiding the ugliness that is Berkley DB [issue with which Cyrus has take a fair amount of the blame; most 'corrupt Cyrus databases' are corrupt BDB databases].
Ah, this must be the database you referred to.
On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 11:23 PM, Christopher Chan christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk wrote:
Mail store != imap server. Mail store = structure for mboxes/maildirs.
Cyrus is sort of its own thing with its own mail store.
Sorry, I keep forgetting about that crap...
Never touched it and never wanted to after I heard the screams from a friend who used cyrus and swore by it until he got corrupt mailboxes. Had to help setup postfix, dovecot and vpopmail iirc.
Some people (or unreliable hardware...) can break anything. There are some very large and apparently successful cyrus installations. Until dovecot started optimistically indexing it wasn't particularly good in large systems.
On Fri, 2011-11-11 at 13:23 +0800, Christopher Chan wrote:
You don't mention a mail store [IMAP Server]? Such as Cyrus IMAP. Something for Postfix to deliver the mail too.
Mail store != imap server. Mail store = structure for mboxes/maildirs.
Cyrus is sort of its own thing with its own mail store.
Sorry, I keep forgetting about that crap... Never touched it and never wanted to after I heard the screams from a friend who used cyrus and swore by it until he got corrupt mailboxes. Had to help setup postfix, dovecot and vpopmail iirc.
People with bad hardware can break anything; and you're probably talking about old versions anyway [anything with indexes/databases can corrupt].
Cyrus is incredibly reliable, stable and fast. And the latest 2.4.x series closes numerous potential issues with how databases are managed.
On Saturday, November 12, 2011 01:01 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
On Fri, 2011-11-11 at 13:23 +0800, Christopher Chan wrote:
You don't mention a mail store [IMAP Server]? Such as Cyrus IMAP. Something for Postfix to deliver the mail too.
Mail store != imap server. Mail store = structure for mboxes/maildirs.
Cyrus is sort of its own thing with its own mail store.
Sorry, I keep forgetting about that crap... Never touched it and never wanted to after I heard the screams from a friend who used cyrus and swore by it until he got corrupt mailboxes. Had to help setup postfix, dovecot and vpopmail iirc.
People with bad hardware can break anything; and you're probably talking about old versions anyway [anything with indexes/databases can corrupt].
You should be right on that score...this was circa 2003/2004.
Cyrus is incredibly reliable, stable and fast. And the latest 2.4.x series closes numerous potential issues with how databases are managed.
Oh, so Cyrus is another 'use a database as a mail store'? The other one that I know of but cannot remember the name of uses postgresql for its mailstore.
Am 12.11.2011 14:53, schrieb Christopher Chan:
Oh, so Cyrus is another 'use a database as a mail store'? The other one that I know of but cannot remember the name of uses postgresql for its mailstore.
the only REAl db-driven mailservr is dbmail and in combination with postfix-mysql-configuration a perfect way to get a self developed web-backend ehich does exavtly what you need
it can also use mysql with innodb
not to forget that you can use replications-slaves for consistent-backups and even use zhem readomly as fallback for postfix-lookups
no idea why so many people complain mailservers with databases are bad instead taking the time and look what benefits it can bring
On Sat, 2011-11-12 at 21:53 +0800, Christopher Chan wrote:
On Saturday, November 12, 2011 01:01 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
People with bad hardware can break anything; and you're probably talking about old versions anyway [anything with indexes/databases can corrupt].
You should be right on that score...this was circa 2003/2004.
Cyrus is incredibly reliable, stable and fast. And the latest 2.4.x series closes numerous potential issues with how databases are managed.
Oh, so Cyrus is another 'use a database as a mail store'? The other one that I know of but cannot remember the name of uses postgresql for its mailstore.
---- not at all - the mailstore itself is simply flat files - essentially a maildir type but all within specified director[y|ies]
There were a number of db's that traditionally were berkeley db's but now the recommended method, as Adam pointed out is to use skiplist. This is what my /etc/imapd.conf (cyrus configuration) contains for db list at this point...
annotation_db: skiplist duplicate_db: skiplist mboxkey_db: skiplist mboxlist_db: skiplist ptscache_db: skiplist quota_db: quotalegacy seenstate_db: skiplist subscription_db: flat statuscache_db: skiplist tlscache_db: skiplist userdeny_db: flat
Actually though, berkeley db is used by an awful lot of daemons such as OpenLDAP, Netatalk and is reasonably durable and to be honest, I've been using Cyrus w/ berkeley db's since the early 2000's and never had a problem whereas there have been times when I've had to slapd_db_recover berkeley db's from OpenLDAP.
I gather that by comparison, PostgreSQL and MySQL are considered comparatively much slower and never used for these servers.
Craig
On Sat, 2011-11-12 at 09:47 -0700, Craig White wrote:
On Sat, 2011-11-12 at 21:53 +0800, Christopher Chan wrote:
On Saturday, November 12, 2011 01:01 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
Cyrus is incredibly reliable, stable and fast. And the latest 2.4.x series closes numerous potential issues with how databases are managed.
Oh, so Cyrus is another 'use a database as a mail store'? The other one that I know of but cannot remember the name of uses postgresql for its mailstore.
not at all - the mailstore itself is simply flat files - essentially a maildir type but all within specified director[y|ies] There were a number of db's that traditionally were berkeley db's but now the recommended method, as Adam pointed out is to use skiplist.
+1
These databases exist in parallel with the mailstore [and are why nobody and nothing should go manually whacking around inside the mailstore; in addition to the fact that people make casual mistakes that good administrative tools can prevent].
These databases track a variety of attributes and meta-data related to the mail store such as seen-state, annotations, quota, text indexing, etc...
Actually though, berkeley db is used by an awful lot of daemons such as OpenLDAP, Netatalk and is reasonably durable and to be honest, I've been using Cyrus w/ berkeley db's since the early 2000's and never had a problem whereas there have been times when I've had to slapd_db_recover berkeley db's from OpenLDAP.
Same here. I've never had a corrupt BDB in Cyrus, but I have had them in OpenLDAP. I've talked to numerous people who have had issues with BDB in Cyrus. The issue is that BDB is extremely sensitive to the environment, so it is hard to know when it is 'right'. Always best, IMO, to avoid it.
I gather that by comparison, PostgreSQL and MySQL are considered comparatively much slower and never used for these servers.
True, BDB is *MUCH* faster. But then BDB is a key-value data store, and PostgresSQL / MySQL are relational model databases. Really apples & oranges.
On 11/10/11 4:48 PM, Christopher Chan wrote:
You don't mention a mail store [IMAP Server]? Such as Cyrus IMAP.
Something for Postfix to deliver the mail too.
Mail store != imap server. Mail store = structure for mboxes/maildirs.
indeed, reader protocol servers like imap, pop3, are a seperate category from the traditional MTA, MDA, MUA triad. in a sense, they are a MUA proxy or service, but they aren't the MUA, thats the client application (Thunderbird, etc). In spite of some claims to the contrary[1], they aren't the MDA, thats something like procmail which the MTA uses to deliver the mail to a mailbox.
[1] first google hit on related keywords claimed imap/pop were part of the MDA.
On Thu, 2011-11-10 at 21:12 -0800, John R Pierce wrote:
On 11/10/11 4:48 PM, Christopher Chan wrote:
You don't mention a mail store [IMAP Server]? Such as Cyrus IMAP.
Something for Postfix to deliver the mail too.
Mail store != imap server. Mail store = structure for mboxes/maildirs.
indeed, reader protocol servers like imap, pop3, are a seperate category from the traditional MTA, MDA, MUA triad. in a sense, they are a MUA proxy or service, but they aren't the MUA, thats the client application (Thunderbird, etc). In spite of some claims to the contrary[1], they aren't the MDA, thats something like procmail which the MTA uses to deliver the mail to a mailbox.
[1] first google hit on related keywords claimed imap/pop were part of the MDA.
---- LMTP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Mail_Transfer_Protocol
Craig
On Friday, November 11, 2011 01:31 PM, Craig White wrote:
On Thu, 2011-11-10 at 21:12 -0800, John R Pierce wrote:
On 11/10/11 4:48 PM, Christopher Chan wrote:
You don't mention a mail store [IMAP Server]? Such as Cyrus IMAP.
Something for Postfix to deliver the mail too.
Mail store != imap server. Mail store = structure for mboxes/maildirs.
indeed, reader protocol servers like imap, pop3, are a seperate category from the traditional MTA, MDA, MUA triad. in a sense, they are a MUA proxy or service, but they aren't the MUA, thats the client application (Thunderbird, etc). In spite of some claims to the contrary[1], they aren't the MDA, thats something like procmail which the MTA uses to deliver the mail to a mailbox.
[1] first google hit on related keywords claimed imap/pop were part of the MDA.
LMTP
That's still nothing to do with imap/pop3 servers. dovecot provides an LDA for just that purpose but it is separate from dovecot's imap/pop3 servers.
On Fri, 2011-11-11 at 13:40 +0800, Christopher Chan wrote:
On Friday, November 11, 2011 01:31 PM, Craig White wrote:
LMTP
That's still nothing to do with imap/pop3 servers. dovecot provides an LDA for just that purpose but it is separate from dovecot's imap/pop3 servers.
---- root@srv2:~# grep lmtp /etc/postfix/main.cf | grep -v '#' mailbox_transport = lmtp:unix:/var/lib/imap/socket/lmtp
postfix will use it (perhaps because I use cyrus) and cyrus (like some dovecot installs) uses sieve.
Craig
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Vomacka" juvix88@gmail.com To: centos@centos.org Sent: Tuesday, November 8, 2011 10:10:28 PM Subject: [CentOS] Postfix mail server procedure
CentOS Community,
I was wondering if anyone had a good resource or procedure for a step by step in installing a mail server with Centos. There ARE documents on google, however almost all that i've found were outdated from 2005. Does anyone know where I can find this type of document for a mailserver Postfix + MySQL + SpamAssassin + ClamAV + Squirrelmail + Postfixadmin, etc?
Save yourself from the headache of setting all this up and just use the open source version of Zimbra. It installs very cleanly on CentOS.
http://www.zimbra.com/downloads/os-downloads.html
David.
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