Sharepoints: State of the Mail Server
With the introduction of Mac OS X Server 10.1.3, Apple finally has released a server product that answers all of the needs of small workgroups. Filesharing, web serving, and now mail serving are all taken care of in one product that is extremely easy to administer and to set up. Thanks, Apple.
Sure, the open mail relay problem should have been taken care before Mac OS X Server shipped last May, but they fixed the problem and gave it out as a free update. Plus, Apple even threw in SMTP authentication as an added bonus. Something that no one really expected, but it is a nice feature.
There are certainly some other features that should be added as Mac OS X Server matures. A graphical interface to the DNS server would be great, but that isn’t a deal breaker by any means. I have faith that as Apple continues to refine the software that additional features like this will be added.
The server works fairly well on small networks, but what if your mail needs are larger than that? While the server can scale well for filesharing and web serving, the mail server is the weakest piece in the equation. There are, however, many different solutions to help the sub-standard mail server. The best thing is that many of them are free.
There are a few commercial servers of note for Mac OS X Server. The one that comes to mind first is Stalker’s Communigate Pro (www.stalker.com). An incredibly powerful and robust mail server solution that should provide just about anything that you need. This is a great product for a stand-alone mail server that doesn’t provide any other services. However, it isn’t integrated into the users and groups that are set up on the server. In some cases this is a good thing. It prevents a compromised mail password from harming your system, but it also means that you have to keep two lists of users and groups. Also, even though it is relatively easy to set up and install, by no means is it as simple as Apple’s mail server. I find the interface so powerful and complicated that it would be almost overwhelming to the casual user. In addition, the webmail features are a bit convoluted. It takes a few clicks before you get to your inbox. It is certainly a compliment to Stalker, however, that they sell a product with as much power as Communigate for an entry-level price of a few hundred dollars.
CESoftware also is shipping an Mac OS X version of its Quick mail server (www.cesoft.com). This is a different beast than most other mail servers. It is more of an inter-office messaging system rather than just a plain mail server, and it has a large pricetag to match. You can spend a few thousand dollars to outfit a medium-sized office. You do get client software with it, but that also means that to use some of its features you need to use that client. Many people who use this mail server swear by it and some swear at it. However, it’s a good solution if you are looking for more of an integrated client server system.
Now on to the free stuff.
Sendmail, Postfix and Exim can all work as SMTP servers that either deliver mail to the Apple mail server or to other servers. All can be configured to block open relays and provide a number of other features.
Sendmail (www.sendmail.org) comes pre-installed, but broken, on Mac OS X Server. A Unix standard for more years than most people can count, Sendmail runs an incredible number of mail servers. It can be very configurable, but you’ll probably need a book to figure it out. Since there are already a few good sites for how to get this to work on an Mac OS X Server, we decided to not re-invent the wheel and list them all here again (hey, its our bandwidth). Also Sendmail is our least favorite solution of the bunch, mostly because of its complexity.
Postfix (www.postfix.org) has been quietly running a number of Mac OS X Servers. Mac OS X compatibility was worked into the source a while ago. It compiles very easily on Mac OS X, and the source even comes with a pre-written startup item. The configuration file is very simple to understand and is very easy to get working with the Apple mail server. However, it doesn’t offer a very easy way to provide SMTP authentication. Postfix was my favorite solution and is still preferred for running on list servers. You can find a few articles here on the site about how to get it up and running.
My current favorite, by far, is now Exim (www.exim.org). This is another SMTP server that has been around for a rather long time. It falls somewhere between Sendmail and Postfix in its complexity. However, once you get the flow of the configuration file it is very easy to set up advanced features with it like SMTP authentication and header rewriting. With the instructions here at afp548.com you should be able to get up and running with Exim in just an hour.
Those are the big contenders for SMTP service, but you still need a POP or IMAP server to have a full-featured mail solution. All of the open-source solutions mentioned above will work with the built-in Apple mail server and for most users that is probably the best course of action. It keeps administration down by allowing all management to be done from the Server Admin application. It keeps the mail in one place which makes back ups easier, too. However, it isn’t the fastest and can bog down when you have a lot of users if they keep a lot of mail on the server.
In that case I would look at alternative servers. If you want IMAP capabilities, though, you don’t have many choices. The University of Washington has an IMAP server (www.washington.edu/imap) that builds easily on an Mac OS X Server and can be incredibly fast, but can be prone to security holes. Hopefully, the Courier and Cyrus IMAP servers will soon be ported over.
If you are looking only for POP services and not IMAP than QPopper from Eudora (www.eudora.com) could be just the thing that you are looking for. The new version 4 has a lot of nice features and should build easily on an Mac OS X Server.
If you are using IMAP you can use SquirrelMail (www.squirrelmail.org) to run a web gateway to your mail. It takes longer to download than to set up and can really be nicer than Communigate’s web interface. There are few others that also work well. A quick search on www.freshmeat.net will pull up a number of PHP based webmail solutions that will work.
All in all the promise of Mac OS X Server is really beginning to come true. Not only do you have a viable solution from Apple, but you also have your choice of a number of different packages to expand the capability of your machine. And that is what Mac OS X Server is really about. Instead of waiting for a company, even Apple, to catch up with your needs, you can go out and nail together your own solution. On the other hand, you might not need to.