[TriLUG] sendmail vs. postfix - was Re: stupid sendmail question?

[Ben Pitzer]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org]On
> Behalf Of Aaron S. Joyner
> Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2004 12:03 PM
> To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list
> Subject: Re: [TriLUG] sendmail vs. postfix - was Re: stupid sendmail
> question?
>
>
> Michael Alan Dorman wrote:
>
> >"Aaron S. Joyner" <aaron at joyner.ws> writes:
> >
> >
> >>On the flip side, that 5% of things that Sendmail can do that Postfix
> >>can't, can be *really* nice.  Postfix does not have Sendmail's milter
> >>interface.  What the Milter interface allows you to do, is reject
> >>messages on the fly, as part of the SMTP session, for what ever reason
> >>you see fit.  Spam, Viruses, Malformed messages, what ever -- you
> >>don't generate NDRs, you just say "No Thanks" and stop talking to the
> >>sending host.  Postfix does not have an elegant way to implement this.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Err, you're flat out wrong here.  Exactly such a feature debuted with
> >the 2.1 release two or three months ago.
> >
> >Mike
> >
> >
> I've been learning this, and was just about to post a retraction when I
> saw your message.  :)  I'm flat out wrong, and thrilled to see it.  :)
> Venema is quick to caution that the Milter interface can be a serious
> drag on performance though, which is why it wasn't implemented sooner.
> I hope to experiment with it and see how reasonable it is to use this
> method in a large volume scenario.
>
> Aaron S. Joyner

Venema does indeed caution this, but the fact is that the milter on Sendmail
can cause a drag on performance as well.  As to how much of a drag on each
one, I can't say.  The fact is that none of us, to my knowledge, have ever
tried to scale Postfix to extreme levels, but I'd be interested to hear from
some party who has tried to do so.  Perhaps we could ask Weitse if he knows
of anyone who has tried, and what level of success they have experienced.

Nonetheless, for the purposes of this group, it's safe to say that for large
enterprise, heavy-load mail services which require spam and/or anti-virus
filters, Sendmail has and will be the 500lb gorilla in the room.  But for
the majority of us, with low-load and/or intermediate level mail relays, MX
servers, or even spam and anti-virus filters, Postfix is a very viable
option, with some advantages for the newer user over the occasionally
confusing Sendmail in terms of configuration and ease of installation.  I'm
using Postfix for my wife's home business in conjunction with SpamAssassin,
with pretty reasonable success.

In other news, it might interest some of you who haven't yet read it to
check out the following article over at freshmeat.net that does some testing
and reviews on a number of common spam filter, including SpamAssassin,
Spastic, dbacl, Bayesian Mail Filter, and others:

	http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/964/

Regards,
Ben Pitzer

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