I recently performed a massive migration of an aging Qmail Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) to a supportable Postfix installation. This had been on my list of things to accomplish for well over a year. Here is a snapshot of what the old environment consisted of:
- Qmail 1.03 (MTA – heavily patched)
- RBL
- SASL Support
- SSL Support
- vpopmail (For virtual domain and user accounts)
- qmailAdmin (Web interface for modifying user accounts/domains/mailing lists)
- Qmail-scanner (Middleware for virus and spam filters)
- clamAV (Virus scanning)
- Spamassassin (Spam Filtering)
- DCC (Spam and mass mailing list detection)
- Razor2 (Spam and mass mailing list detection)
- Domainkeys (Sign outgoing emails and validate incoming email signatures)
- Maildrop (Mail delivery agent)
- ezmlm (Mailing list software)
This older environment served me well over the years. It hadn’t been patched for quite some time and was only a matter of time before it was exploited. I tasked myself the somewhat challenging process of learning the ins and outs of Postfix. I ended up replacing all aspects of my aging setup with a much more solid and supportable platform. The new design consists of the following software:
- Postfix (MTA)
- RBL
- Built in support for virtual users and domains
- SASL Support
- SSL Support
- postfixAdmin (Web interface for adding & modifying accounts/domains)
- dk-milter (DKIM signing and validation)
- Amavisd-new (Middleware application for virus & spam filters)
- clamAV (Virus scanning)
- Spamassassin (Spam Filtering)
- DCC (Spam and mass mailing list detection)
- Razor2 (Spam and mass mailing list detection)
- mailman (Mailing list software)
- Postgrey (a very effective technique to eliminate spam)
- mailgraph (detailed graphs updated every few minutes showing spam, rejected messages, and other important data)
I couldn’t be happier with the design. It’s fast, secure, stable, and new! Over the next few months I plan on posting my configs with detailed explanations of the options I enabled and more importantly disabled. Nothing would make me happier to provide you with a jump start into the world of free MTA’s.
Now get out there and email people!