PLESK 8 with Postfix!

[Hal9000]

Please SW Soft, pleeeeeeease!

 

[BoXie]

Agree .. qmail is old , not being actively maintained ..

It's stable ok .. but Postfix is more 'alive' i guess .. and it is part of a lot of distro's .

 

[Hal9000]

Qmail might be stable to some users, i have severe problems with it on Debian...
It keeps stopping without reason at unregular intervals, the watchdog does not always successfully restart qmail, and removing the watchdog as many propose doesn't help.

RBL seems not to work on Debian.

Also, qmail is very limited if it comes to mail filtering/antispam measures.

I had a MUCH BETTER mail solution when using the cheaper Confixx+Postfix

 

[BoXie]

Yep Watchdog doesn't work well .. but why would you want to monitor your system from the same system anyway Another quite useless module ...

What's bad at qmail ... i think :

- lack of decent built-in queue management tools
- no RBL logging of rejected mails.
- not standard included in Redhat like OS'es.

 

[perler]

Originally posted by BoXie
Yep Watchdog doesn't work well .. but why would you want to monitor your system from the same system anyway Another quite useless module ...

What's bad at qmail ... i think :

- lack of decent built-in queue management tools
- no RBL logging of rejected mails.
- not standard included in Redhat like OS'es.

1) changing the MTA will break such a lot of sites - they won't do it, which is good.

2) that qmail stops from time to time is not a problem of qmail itself, it's more one of inetd. they should switch to daemontools , i had servers running for years without interruptions with this configuration.

3) qmail is actively maintained. there is just no need to add things like in a monolithic postfix/exim system - qmail is modular - plugin what you like. look at the extensions for av/spamfihgting and how they are implemented. qmail is rock-rock-rockstable and its security is unmatched by any other MTA.

4) that qmail isn't included into redhat is a problem of redhat, not qmail. anyway, it's so easy to build it and plesk is doing it for you anyway, so whats the point?

5)RBL logging is not done by plesk but it could be done easily, again, this has nothng to do with qmail.

overall, qmail may be not your run of the mill MTA but this is by design, bernstein is doing it with purpose and from my own experience i can say, he did it right. sw-soft should keep it.

instead of watchdog i installed webmin which is useull anyway, then look at "server and system status". this is an application similar to watchdog but you can issue a command if the service is going down, so put a

/etc/init.d/qmail restart

t there and you are done.

regarding webmin, don't use the version that comes with your distribution but install from source, mostly they lag behind the webmin versions. webmin is keeping much faster up with the distris then visa versa. usually i avoid installing from source (for maintanability's sake) but this is one of the exceptions from the rule.

PAT

 

[BoXie]

You've got some points there.

About 1) : It should not break sites when users can CHOOSE between qmail or Postfix at (clean) install time.

5) Can you explain to me how to get RBL logging work without breaking the Plesk's qmail binaries.

Can it be done without (re-)compiling etc .. because i don't want to mess with Plesk's qmail binaries .. or set up a compile environment on my production servers.

 

[perler]

Originally posted by BoXie
You've got some points there.

About 1) : It should not break sites when users can CHOOSE between qmail or Postfix at (clean) install time.

when doing a clean install surely, but an update may be problematic, because you can plugin a lot into qmail . anyway, maintaining two MTAs is expansive, you need enegeneers for both systems and so on and i really don't see the point. in the end, an MTA is an MTA is an MTA, nothing fancy about this..

Originally posted by BoXie
5) Can you explain to me how to get RBL logging work without breaking the Plesk's qmail binaries.

Can it be done without (re-)compiling etc .. because i don't want to mess with Plesk's qmail binaries .. or set up a compile environment on my production servers. [/B]

give this a try. you should be able to just drop in the rblsmtpd executable. keep a backup. if you're successful, maybe you could report back here..

 

[Hal9000]

They badly need to drop the inet.d stuff.
Most important to me is that the MTA has to be stable, and right now it just isn't.

You can't put Qmail on the same level of Postfix.
In Postfix it's so much easier to add SPF, RBL, Greylisting, Clamav, and many other kind of filtering. It is just more modern and more suited for today's internet.
Postfix is fast and rock stable too, it has an excellent reputation.

The Plesk Qmail is packaged by SW-Soft, it's so difficult to add any additional feature or spam filtering.

SW-Soft has the engineers that know Postfix, they offer it in the cheaper Confixx along with Qmail and Sendmail support.
I don't see why Plesk should force you to use an outdated MTA.

 

[perler]

sorry, but i don't think you have a clue about this.

why don't you cry for a replacement of that old

ls

which is in unix for aeons now? or

grep

? puh.. regular expressions, invented in the 60s.. how oldscool..

see, when you want to be on the forefront in versions and software on your xp home system - do this, but don't try to translate that "knowledge" on a scale you just have no picture of.

because postfix seems to be the only MTA you are "good in" and is the default choice of MTA in most desktop distros today (not even sure about this, debian defaults to exim) it doesn't mean plesk should switch to it on their massively layered hosting platform.

i'm quite sure they layed out a plan before choosing qmail and with serving millions of customers you just don't change that plan because postfix has a more rapid developement cycle and "feels more modern". quite the opposite.

PAT

 

[perler]

to get back to the more constructive side of life

Originally posted by Hal9000
RBL seems not to work on Debian.

this

smtp stream tcp nowait.100 root /var/qmail/bin/tcp-env tcp-env /var/qmail/bin/relaylock /usr/sbin/rblsmtpd -b -rbl.spamcop.net /var/qmail/bin/qmail-smtpd /var/qmail/bin/smtp_auth /var/qmail/bin/true /var/qmail/bin/cmd5checkpw /var/qmail/bin/true  
smtps stream tcp nowait.100 root /var/qmail/bin/tcp-env tcp-env /var/qmail/bin/relaylock /usr/sbin/rblsmtpd -b -rbl.spamcop.net /var/qmail/bin/qmail-smtpd /var/qmail/bin/smtp_auth /var/qmail/bin/true /var/qmail/bin/cmd5checkpw /var/qmail/bin/true

in /etc/intet.d should do the trick. the MAPS settings in the plesk interface doesn't seem to work thou.

PAT

Edited formating problems in the code part..

 

[Hal9000]

see, when you want to be on the forefront in versions and software on your xp home system - do this, but don't try to translate that "knowledge" on a scale you just have no picture of.

My picture is brighter than yours.

because postfix seems to be the only MTA you are "good in" and is the default choice of MTA in most desktop distros today (not even sure about this, debian defaults to exim) it doesn't mean plesk should switch to it on their massively layered hosting platform.

I wouldn't mind Exim, even though I never used it, I heard it is not that bad either.
I am not asking for a replacement, I am asking for an option, like the cheaper Confixx currently offers. You want to use Qmail with Confixx? No problem. You want to use Postfix? Again, no problem.

i'm quite sure they layed out a plan before choosing qmail and with serving millions of customers you just don't change that plan because postfix has a more rapid developement cycle and "feels more modern". quite the opposite.

You know, unlike YOU, I take spam fighting quite seriously, and back when I was using Confixx with Postfix, I really had a kick *** setup, with per-user/per-domain settings, greylisting, SPF, clamav, HELO checks, sender verification, kiss my ***, and so on.
I just can't reach that level with Qmail, it's patched by sw-soft, there are no sources, for most of the stuff I would be required to recompile and mess around.

Internet is changing, when Qmail was developed SPAM was not a big issue like it is now. In my opinion, qmail lags behind as far as this goes.

And, on top of that, it's just unstable. I'm happy for you that you got no problems with it, and I am sure that Qmail is generally i rock stable MTA... but just look around in this forum, I'm not the only one with problems with Plesk's Qmail dying. And, typical Qmail, the logs are not very useful... I am SICK of it, honestly.

 

[perler]

Originally posted by Hal9000
My picture is brighter than yours.
And, on top of that, it's just unstable. I'm happy for you that you got no problems with it, and I am sure that Qmail is generally i rock stable MTA... but just look around in this forum, I'm not the only one with problems with Plesk's Qmail dying. And, typical Qmail, the logs are not very useful... I am SICK of it, honestly.

problem is, that you want back the system you had not the "better" system, whatever this means.. i just pointed out, that some (all?) of your complains about qmail come from not knowing qmail. btw, as far as i looked into the plesk installation of qmail it is quite vanilla. read life with qmail and adjustit to you liking. qmail is build like this. you can easily drop in replacements. so stop now, thanks.

did my previous posting enabeld rbl for you? no problem, you're welcome

PAT

edited typo

 

[perler]

Originally posted by Hal9000


And, on top of that, it's just unstable. I'm happy for you that you got no problems with it, and I am sure that Qmail is generally i rock stable MTA... but just look around in this forum, I'm not the only one with problems with Plesk's Qmail dying. And, typical Qmail, the logs are not very useful... I am SICK of it, honestly.

btw, read my posting above about webmin, this solves the problem.

because the problem with qmail hanging has nothing to do with qmail itself but inet.d the qmail log's don't help here. i'm not aware that qmail logs lack information other MTAs offer, but may be you have needs in this regard i do not have..

PAT

 

[Gorgon@]

I would personally vote for exim or at least the choice of running exim. In regards to qmail, the licensing is not your typicial open source license (IIRC) and that causes problems. Sw-soft doesn't follow that license so if you ask for help on any of the qmail lists you won't get it (b/ of the license violation).

If qmail is still going to be in the picture, at least get the licensing straightened out so it's a 'legal' copy of qmail.

(but allow exim too, please!!!!).

Of course I could be wrong. I ran into the 'license issue' over a year ago.

M

 

[Spyder]

Hi, Guys, please no flames.. I run qmail since pre-history... my ISP is running since 1995.

The performance, flexibility and security of qmail is an great point.

To deal with spam you have basicaly 3 options.

1. Don´t care
2. put some toys on host like (4psa, spam shield, spamassasin.. and others )
3. Put an mail relay before plesk host (Atomic´s Gamera, barracudas and others)

personaly we use the method 2 + 3... but believe.. QMAIL rulez.. and about distros... we don´t run any linuxes.. we run FreeBSD´s and believe if is not on ports, pkgs with source you can compile and tunne the all softwares.

 

[perler]

point 3) you mean before the plesk host, do you?!

 

[Spyder]

Originally posted by perler
point 3) you mean before the plesk host, do you?!

Yes, Yes, Yes...... replaced....

 

[BoXie]

But i MUST say :

It's a @#$%@# shame that there is no built-in queue manager in qmail !

I can only delete mails or manage the queue with 3rd party tools like 'qmHandle'.

This is really stupid !

qmail-qstat is quite useless ...

 

[Spyder]

Personaly I can´t believe the SWsoft will release an queue handler to post fix too, but there is one product from 4PSA (qmail something, I cant remember now the correct name) that can help you to do this.

One option is qmail-remove (3dd party software) wich permits you rudimentary handle the queue..

=====
qmail-remove
qmail-remove [options]
-e use extended POSIX regular expressions
-h, -? this help message
-i search case insensitively [default: case sensitive]
-n <bytes> limit our search to the first <bytes> bytes of each file
-p <pattern> specify the pattern to search for
-q <queuedir> specify the base qmail queue dir [default: /var/qmail/queue]
-r actually remove files, without this we'll only print them
-s <split> specify your conf-split value if non-standard [default: 23]
-v increase verbosity (can be used more than once)
-y <yankdir> directory to put files yanked from the queue [default: <queuedir
>/yanked]
-X <secs> modify timestamp on matching files, to make qmail expire mail
<secs> is the number of seconds we want to move the file into t
he past.
specifying a value of 0 causes this to default to (604800)
-x <timespec> modify timestamp on matching files, to make qmail expire mail
<timespec> is a date/time string in the format of output of the
"date" program.
see manpage for strptime(2) for details of this format
====

Tia

 

[BoXie]

Thank you .. but my main point was to state that other MTA's are much more 'feature complete'.

qmail really lacks some of today's 'must have' features .... this is annoying and forgiving for now .. but might be a real show-stopper in the near future.

The reason that qmail has been 1.03 for a very long time now (there are even some 3rd party MUST have patches ... called 1.05), makes it look bad and more-over a spaghetti of 3rd party patches ... (which makes you doubt which ones of those patches you can 'trust' on your production system).

It's secure and stable allright ... but so is Postfix !!