[CentOS] Use postfix and spamd on CentOS 6 - looking for a shortest guide

[Timothy Murphy]

BC wrote:

>> I've never seen a 1-page document that said,
>> "These are the changes I made after downloading packages X, Y and Z."

> There is a large chasm between configuring a mail server and understanding
> the configuration of a mail server. Due to the many pitfalls and custom
> environments, it is very difficult to have a 1-page document that does
> much more than be an outbound MTA.

Note what I asked for.
If you have installed postfix + spamassassin or whatever under CentOS
then presumably you downloaded certain packages
and then made certain changes in config files and perhaps elsewhere.
Therefore it is possible to write a short document just listing
the changes you have made.
It may be a waste of time in your view;
but in my experience this is exactly what I want to read
for my very basic home server needs.

> Unlike apache, you can't just tweak the config after a failure 
> and hit 'refresh'.

I don't see why not.
That is exactly what I do, in both cases.
The difference in my experience is that apache documentation is much better.

> The postfix documentation does detail a few sane defaults, 
> but spamassassin is not part of postfix 
> and therefore the defaults have to be modified right from the get-go, 
> also unlike with apache where the defaults work for many people 
> because they don't require any complexity from their httpd servers.

MySQL, LDAP, PHP, etc, are not part of httpd,
but they all seem to me to work well together
without studying the matter in depth.

>  I would highly recommend getting a book on postfix.

If I had to read a book in order to install and configure postfix
I would go back to sendmail.

You sound as though you think it is meritorious
for software to be difficult to use.
The task of postfix seems to me fairly easy to understand,
so I don't see why implementing a solution should be that difficult.

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland