Planning on installing a mail server, possibly postfix or mercury

Question

Any suggestions? Speed is the only criteria. Functionality required is minimal.

Please suggest and also let me know of some good/bad experiences. I want something super simple, only simple mail functionality, absolutely stable and just runs once I have installed it and I never have to look back at it.

Answer 1

The easiest mail server to setup will depend on your OS/distribution. If it is possible for you to get server with a control panel then you will have an easy way to configure mail an should use that.

Configuring any of the well known packages is not that hard if your requirements are simple. Having said that should you make a mistake you could find your server blacklisted if spammers exploit an error, or your server misbehaves by sending backscatter for example.

I would recommend whatever you do you should make sure you have details of an alternate SMTP server you can use and have a backup MX server. If you do that then server downtime does not have to mean lost mail. Also don't forget to have backups of the mailboxes.

My recommendation is for a simple setup is Exim. It's very easy to install in my experience. If it was a windows server then hmail.

Answer 2

Try iRedMail bundle: open source mail server solution. http://www.iredmail.org/

As it says: Easy, fast deployment in LESS THAN 1 MINUTE.

Answer 3

According to google, Postfix runs on Linux (not windows) and Mercury runs on Windows (not Linux)!

I hope you are running Linux and not Windows. If Linux use postfix. (exim is another but Postfix is easier and fast)

Just how easy is it to set up virtual mailboxes? Easy as 1 2 3 ... see below.

apt-get install postfix

Configure it as Internet Site

Edit main.cf below:

Change YOURDOMAIN.COM to your own domain...

smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name (Ubuntu)
biff = no
append_dot_mydomain = no
readme_directory = no

smtpd_tls_cert_file=/etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
smtpd_tls_key_file=/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key
smtpd_use_tls=yes
smtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtpd_scache
smtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtp_scache

myhostname = YOURDOMAIN.COM
alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases
alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases
myorigin = /etc/mailname
mydestination = $myhostname, localhost.com, localhost
relayhost =
mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8 [::ffff:127.0.0.0]/104 [::1]/128
mailbox_size_limit = 0
recipient_delimiter = +
inet_interfaces = all

Add the following lines at the end of main.cf ...

transport_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/transport
local_recipient_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/maildir

virtual_gid_maps = static:113
virtual_mailbox_base = /home/nulled/mailstorage/
virtual_mailbox_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/maildir
virtual_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual
virtual_uid_maps = static:105
home_mailbox = Maildir/

Change *virtual_gid_maps* and *virtual_uid_maps* to the user/group id of your postfix install. Change *virtual_mailbox_base* to where all your maildirs will be stored. Note: All Maildir/ MUST end with a / to indicate it is a Maildir type mailbox and not the old school lame way.

The key is transport_maps and local_recipient_maps

*transport_maps* allow you to add as many domains you want to manage that you have control over (ex: coolsite.com, my_other_site.com, another.com) /etc/postfix/transport example is below.

coolsite.com virtual:
my_other_site.com virtual:
another.com virtual:

*local_recipient_maps* let you create mailboxes with a single line added to /etc/postfix/maildir (no need to create a unix/linux user account! )

do_not_reply@coolsite.com coolsite.com/root/Maildir/
accounts@coolsite.com coolsite.com/accounts/Maildir/
root@another.com coolsite.com/root/Maildir/
www-data@another.com another.com/root/Maildir/
do_not_reply@my_other_site.com my_other_site.com/root/Maildir/

If you look closely, you will notice I directed mail from one domain into any folder I want, including into folders of other Emailbox domains! So if you have 3 email accounts, you can direct it all to be piled into a single maildir!

Be sure to run:

postmap /etc/postfix/maildir /etc/postfix/transport

No need to reload or restart postfix, changes happen as soon as you run postmap!

But changes to main.cf will require a postfix stop and start.

Answer 4

There's going to be lots of personal preferences thrown into the mix here. My two cents are that I used Qmail for about twelve years and recently moved to Postfix because some of the features present in Qmail were quite tricky to implement (patching source code for example). I'd also heard that the (relatively famous) original author wasn't involved any more.

The amount of docs on Postfix is stunning and the fully-fledged anti-spam solution I put together didn't include a massive learning curve by any means. It's very fast and solid and I can truly say it's not given me any headaches in over two years.

If you have a desktop you can try an MTA out on then why not see what appeals the most ?

Answer 5

I would recommend Qmail . It is:

• secure (there is not a single security vulnerability in the last 13 years)
• fast (could handle millions of messages per day even on very old hardware)
• rock solid (used by some of the largest companies, e.g. Yahoo! and Microsoft)
• It has packages for Debian and many other distributions

I work in the web hosting business and use qmail on production servers for more than eight years.

See also the wikipedia article for Qmail and a popular qmail resources website - qmail.org .