# Mail server program better for 6000-8000 user



## congavangkiev (Dec 18, 2011)

I want to set up a mail server for 6000-8000 users. But I don't know program better for sendmail. I have list program sendmail: postfix, qmail, sendmail, Lotus Domino, exchange. Please help me choice program better! 
thank you very much.


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## graudeejs (Dec 18, 2011)

Postfix, is pretty easy to setup.
Qmail is ancient AFAIK
Sendmail is known for security problems, but I don't know how much of that applies today.

There's also Exim - very cofigurable mail server, but configuration is pretty complex

I'd go with postfix


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## gkontos (Dec 18, 2011)

There is a big difference between postfix, qmail, sendmail and  lotus domino, exchange... 

The first group are MTA agents while the second group are groupware applications. 

The answer is that it depends on what you want to do.


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## congavangkiev (Dec 18, 2011)

Now my system has 500 users and transports 2.0000 mails/day, no problem with postfix, but in the future my system will be 6000-10.000 users and send/receive 2.000.000 mails/day. Postfix can transport?


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## ecazamir (Dec 18, 2011)

2 mil.  mails / day means more than 20 messages/sec (average). This is not a trivial task,  not even for qmail,  if the server is also scanning for SPAM or viruses unless most messages are sent to more than one recipient.  You should consider splitting the mail sending and mailbox locations to more servers.


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## gkontos (Dec 18, 2011)

congavangkiev said:
			
		

> Now My system have 500 user and transport 2.000.000 mail/day no problem with postfix but in future my system will be 6000 user and send,receiv 5.000.000 mail/day. Postfix can Transport ?



That's an average of 4000 emails per user a day. It is really too much, are the numbers correct?


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## graudeejs (Dec 18, 2011)

I think he wanted to say 5000 users


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## congavangkiev (Dec 18, 2011)

Sorry,  my system has 500 users and transports 2.0000 mails/day (send and receive) no problem with postfix but in future my system will be 6000-10.000 users and send/receive 2.000.000 mails/day. Postfix can transport.


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## gkontos (Dec 18, 2011)

congavangkiev said:
			
		

> sorry,  My system have 500 user and transport 2.0000 mail/day (send and receiv)no problem with postfix but in future my system will be 6000-10.000 user and send,receiv 2.000.000 mail/day. Postfix can Transport ?



The numbers don't add up again. Your are estimating 200 emails per user per day again.  That's really a lot.

In any case if you have so much volume you will most definitely need to find some sort of load balancing solution. Round robin would work in this case. You should also consider tuning some variables.
And of course if you are storing the virtual information in mysql then this should be in a separate server(s).

Regards


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## vand777 (Dec 18, 2011)

gkontos said:
			
		

> The numbers don't add up again. Your are estimating 200 emails per user per day again.  That's really a lot.



Not in busy organisations 

I receive 200-300 emails per day. However, majority of them are just CCs and require no reply.


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## ecazamir (Dec 18, 2011)

Postfix will do it. I'm not sure if a single server is able to face this workload.


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## gkontos (Dec 18, 2011)

vand777 said:
			
		

> Not in busy organisations
> 
> I receive 200-300 emails per day. However, majority of them are just CCs and require no reply.



Yeah I remember working in one where I used to get around 100 junk internal communication per day.

That is the reason I asked in the first place what he wants to do.

If you plan to provide email service for 6000 users in an organization then you require a very different set up than if you plan to provide email service to 6000 Internet users.


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## congavangkiev (Dec 19, 2011)

I want to know max transport mail per user/day with Postfix. Because I have a project to set up a mail system (postfix+spamassin+clamav+roundcube). for 18.000 user/60 cities. I have two plans:

- plan 01: 01 system mail/20 city, may be 01 server IBM System x3850 X5 (2 x Intel Xeon, 16 core processor). 
- Plan 02: 01 system mail/60 city, may be 03 server IBM System x3850 X5 

But I'm not sure how much per user transport mail per day.

Please help me choose a plan.


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## dave (Dec 19, 2011)

You need to source one of those servers, set it up and do some testing.

http://digitizdat.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-i-benchmark-postfix.html


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## phoenix (Dec 19, 2011)

We have a single SMTP server that handles *all* the incoming/outgoing e-mail for our school district.  It's the primary MX for the district.  It runs postfix, spamassassin, amavisd-new, clamav, mysql.

It handles between 2-5 million messages per month, for approx. 15,000 e-mail addresses (students and staff), and about 90% of those messages are blocked as spam (so they never leave this box).

However, this box only handles SMTP traffic.  There are no user accounts on this system, there are no mailboxes on this system.  It forwards messages on to either the main staff Zimbra server, or to the school webmail servers, or to other servers as needed.  This is just a relay/scanning box.

All outgoing e-mail from all servers and clients in the district is funnelled through this box, either via direct settings in the clients, or firewall redirects.

This is an older AMD Opteron 200-series system with 2x single-core CPUs and 6 GB of RAM.  More modern hardware would be able to handle even more SMTP traffic.


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