# Which is the best mail server software?



## sdf (Sep 9, 2018)

Hello,

Which is the best mail server software?

Thanks.


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## Max212 (Sep 9, 2018)

Maybe it will sound weird, but best mail server is one that you have the best knowledge of it and covers 95-98% of your needs out of the box.


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## ShelLuser (Sep 9, 2018)

There is no such thing. "best" depends on context, and since you haven't given any...

Another problem is that "mail server" doesn't really tell us much. For example: an SMTP server such as Sendmail or Postfix is just as much a mailserver as a POP3/IMAP server is; software such as Cyrus IMAPd or Dovecot.

All four process mail but do so in a totally different way. Therefor you can't really compare them.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 9, 2018)

You mean like in the world?


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## scottro (Sep 9, 2018)

There is not going to be a definitive answer. If you are familiar with any of the existing ones and like it, use it.  Postfix is pretty well documented and may be the most popular. (Or maybe it's the most troublesome which is why I see more written about it in forums and such than I do other mail servers). 

There's a new OpenBSD one, which I think also works with FreeBSD, (not in FreeBSD right now, can't confirm that.)
https://www.opensmtpd.org
Best can mean simplest or most sophisticated.  My inclination is to say postfix because it's well documented and quite popular so if the documentation isn't clear to you (and sometimes I know I've found it confusing) there is usually someone around who can help.


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## Cthulhux (Sep 10, 2018)

OpenSMTPD (out), Dovecot (in).


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## ShelLuser (Sep 10, 2018)

Cthulhux said:


> OpenSMTPD (out), Dovecot (in).


I'm pretty sure you mixed that up. Although SMTP can be used to sent messages it cannot be used to retrieve e-mail (which would account for outgoing I think). It's most common task is to handle incoming e-mail.


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## Cthulhux (Sep 10, 2018)

SMTP is a delivery protocol (outgoing), IMAP and POP3 are incoming protocols.


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## SirDice (Sep 10, 2018)

Cthulhux said:


> IMAP and POP3 are incoming protocols.


Not quite. They're read-only client protocols. Email is sent and received using SMTP between mail servers (MTA; Message Transfer Agent), SMTP is also used to _send_ mail on a MUA (Mail User Agent). IMAP and POP3 are protocols to read mail on an MUA.


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## phoenix (Sep 11, 2018)

If we're talking about user-facing mail servers, nothing beats Zimbra.    The integrated web-based client is amazing, but there's also POP/IMAP support for those who prefer fat clients (do those people still exist?  ).  If you're willing to pay for it, Exchange ActiveSync support is available for mobile clients; there are alternatives for the free/open-source version of Zimbra, they're just not as robust/automatic.

It's a bundle and fancy glue logic around Postfix, Cyrus, Amavis, SpamAssassin, ClamAV, OpenLDAP, MySQL, Apache, and a bunch of other things to provide everything you need for workgroup server (e-mail, calendar, contacts, shared folders, and so on).

It's basically the opensource version of Microsoft Exchange.

There used to be a version for FreeBSD.  Not sure if it's still available or not (it's not part of the ports tree, but they provided packages for it).


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## shepper (Sep 11, 2018)

Some comments.  Chapter 28 of the handbook describes the components of Electronic mail.  A default FreeBSD install comes with sendmail as an MTA.  Sendmail is the classic MTA but configuration has been described by Michael Lucus, in Absolute BSD, as a rite of sysadmin passage and being akin to crushing a full beer can on your forehead.

OpenBSD also used sendmail as its default for years but viewed it, along with ntp, as bloated and overly complex for most users needs. An OpenBSD developer wrote Opensmtpd as a smaller, lighter replacment and it is available as a FreeBSD port: mail/opensmtpd.


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## ucomp (Sep 11, 2018)

sdf said:


> Hello,
> 
> Which is the best mail server software?
> 
> Thanks.



The best mail server software by default is the one which is running  on your ISP's host 
because its got an ip-Adress which is allowed to deliver mail to worldwide hosts.
You can use this "*primary best premium software*" as the outgoing relay for your own "*secondary best premium MTA" *


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## Datapanic (Sep 11, 2018)

sendmail and fwtk's smap/smapd!  duh!


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## sdf (Sep 11, 2018)

scottro said:


> There's a new OpenBSD one, which I think also works with FreeBSD, (not in FreeBSD right now, can't confirm that.)
> https://www.opensmtpd.org
> Best can mean simplest or most sophisticated.  My inclination is to say postfix because it's well documented and quite popular so if the documentation isn't clear to you (and sometimes I know I've found it confusing) there is usually someone around who can help.



Thank you very much. I will try it.  I don't know if it is better than DragonFlyBSD mta or Exim. I have not tested them.


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## sdf (Sep 11, 2018)

pyret said:


> Right now I’m running OpenSMTPD with Dovecot on OpenBSD.
> 
> In the past I’ve used Sendmail on FreeBSD, Weasel on OS/2, upas (mail) on Plan 9, and contemplated Postfix.



Plan 9 is still going on, really good news. Have the opportunity to try it. Thank you very much.

And is Unix discontinued development, is Version 10 the last version of Unix?


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## ucomp (Sep 11, 2018)

phoenix said:


> .....
> 
> It's a bundle .....



If someone is searching for a smaller 'bundle' than zimbra( send, receive emails (without calendar etc.) ) there's Apache James , based on java. They were long time in beta state but have released new versions, in the terms of SirDice(in another thread) I would call Apache James  'easy to configure ' ;-)  (easiest I ever used).. ( I haven't tested it yet under FreeBSD)


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 12, 2018)

sdf said:


> And is Unix discontinued development, is Version 10 the last version of Unix?


UNIX is not made by a company. UNIX is an operating system certified as following the UNIX standard by The Open Group. Apple's Mac OSX is certified UNIX. As are those by IBM and Oracle.


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## Datapanic (Sep 12, 2018)

And of course, there's unix().


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## Datapanic (Sep 12, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> UNIX is not made by a company. UNIX is an operating system certified as following the UNIX standard by The Open Group. Apple's Mac OSX is certified UNIX. As are those by IBM and Oracle.



You need to clarify this better.  "UNIX" is a trademark.  "Unix", on the other hand is an operating system from the original AT&T (~a "COMPANY"!~) that came out of Bell Labs in the 1970's.


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## diizzy (Oct 2, 2018)

I'm going to say that if you can't figure out the answer yourself don't setup an email server as it will most likely do more harm than good.
Managing mail servers are more or less a full-time job, just outsource it to a provider instead.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 2, 2018)

Datapanic said:


> You need to clarify this better.


No I don't. Sometimes I just don't feel like hitting the capslock key.


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## Martin Garcia (Nov 1, 2018)

Max212 said:


> Maybe it will sound weird, but best mail server is one that you have the best knowledge of it and covers 95-98% of your needs out of the box.


Absolutely right. Then for me is postfix. Its well tested. There are LOTS of documentation, integration and support around there, specially for Linux. But does not differ for BSD.
If you are planning a mail server setup I highly suggest using postfix.


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## timypcr (Nov 5, 2018)

Sorry late in this thread but for the last 4 years I've been administering https://www.iredmail.org servers for both personal and office where we also provide email to our clients. The docs and support are great. It's a script that installs/configs postfix, dovecot, and many other open source utilities with a very slick when ui. Out of the box it's a decent email solution, with the right tweeks it's excellent with powerful spam and security features.


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## Datapanic (Nov 5, 2018)

My setup is not too bad...
Mail store:  FreeBSD vm on ESXi running www/apache24,  mail/dovecot, mail/postfix, mail/roundcube, mail/tpop3d
Mail relays x3: FreeBSD vm's on ESXi running mail/mailscanner, www/apache24, mail/postfix
All the above run behind a firewall.  The firewalls have remote logging setup that handle various fail2ban issues and other pf stuff.  
Of course there's more pkgs installed but those are the main ones.  
I use bareos for backups and percona for sql db.
Back in the old days, I wrote an extremely modified version of smap/smapd in C from the fwtk that worked well, but I wanted to migrate away from coding so the mailscanner/postfix combination was my choice and it has worked well for me...


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## drhowarddrfine (Nov 5, 2018)

As far as I'm concerned, the best is sendmail because you can do anything with it. Especially if you need a programming interface, which we do, but I'd still use it. I understand the others might be easier to set up--and looking at config tutorials I'm not really sure--but give me sendmail every time.


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## trev (Nov 17, 2018)

`sendmail` suits my needs - it does everything I want and allowed me to add milters for anything it doesn't do (I wrote a C milter for it to block spam based on the relay name/IP).


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## johnblue (Dec 12, 2018)

I have had great success with the iredmail.org product:

https://docs.iredmail.org/install.iredmail.on.freebsd.html

https://www.iredmail.org/download.html

You will need to stay on top of ports by keeping thing up to date and close off services that you are not willing to accept the risk for.


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## sol289 (Dec 13, 2018)

For SMTP i'm using exim (switched from postfix because it was unable to suit my needs of mail processing), and for POP3 / IMAP i'm using Сyrus-Imapd. But it all depends on what mail system you're trying to build. How many users (and then - what type of DB for authentication - SQL/LDAP?)? Preferred SPAM fighting software? Webmail frontend? Specific mail processing (i.e. rewriting addresses, saving all mail, etc)?


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## izmir tabela (Dec 23, 2018)

ı think thunderbird is best choice


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## drhowarddrfine (Dec 24, 2018)

izmir tabela Thunderbird is not mail server software. Bad first post.


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