Putting together a feature rich email server

[kachunga]

I am currently trying to build a ISP level e-mail sever. Apple’s mail server won’t come close.

I am have been trying to research the best software for the job but before I could do that I had to figure out exactly what I needed. Here is the list of features:
[list:de1846ffcd]
-Accounts and authentication held in a MySQL databes
-Multiple Vitrual Domains ( also handled by MySQL databases)
-POP/IMAP, as well as “webmail” (squirrelmail)
-PHP
-Fast and able to handle 1000-100000 users
-Secure.. both in program design and ability to use SSL on some of or all Virtual domains
-UCE protection/filtering
-Antivirus protection
[/list:u:de1846ffcd]
IS THIS POSSIBLE ON MAC OS X SERVER (XSERVE)????

The goal is to make an easy to administer webserver, hence the need for most looked up data to be in mysql.

I am gathering information on how to do this. Instead of reinventing the wheel I am sure that many or all of these requests have been accomplished before. I am turning to the community to figure out the best approach. Any thoughts on this subject is greatly appricated.

Apprently ElgertS ([url]https://www.afp548.com/eBBS/search.php?search_author=ElgertS[/url]) has some similar requests. With that in mind I am going to be taking notes and hopefully putting together an article reguarding this process.

As of now these are the programs i am looking at… feel free to comment on any of them:
[list:de1846ffcd]
Postfix as the main MTA [url]http://www.postfix.org[/url]
UW Pine/Pico POP/IMAP
SquirrelMail [url]http://squirrelmail.org[/url] (with some Plugins) [url]http://squirrelmail.org/plugins.php[/url]
PAM-MySQL [url]http://pam-mysql.sourceforge.net/[/url]
Postfix Admin [url]http://high5.net/postfixadmin/[/url]
WebMin [url]http://www.webmin.com/[/url]
MySQL [url]http://www.mysql.org[/url]
Mailman [url]http://sourceforge.net/projects/mailman[/url]
ClamAV [url]http://clamav.elektrapro.com/[/url]
Amavis [url]http://www.amavis.org/[/url]
SpamAssassin [url]http://spamassassin.rediris.es/index.html[/url]
[/list:u:de1846ffcd]

Thanks to all

[ElgertS]

I have an appointment with a good friend who is a Unix expert on Monday and we were going to do our best to make such a structure happen, leveraging mainly off the great reports here on afp548.com.

I would like to know what are the core differences between Postfix and Exim? It seems that is an area where people are interested in trying one or the other. The remaining elements in your list are the same in mine and are what were used in the three part articles on afp548.com.

[kachunga]

thanks for the great input…. I am very glad to see this discussion 😀

I am not super familiar with exim but it looks fairly popular and customizable. Will it work as a drop in replacement for send mail? I would like one of my servers to be able to send mail thru php.

once again thanks

[kachunga]

So i guess any combination of the afore mentioned programs (first post) work together. So, maybe the question boils down to which base MTA to use?
[list:c1e882bb17]
[b:c1e882bb17]-Postfix
-EXIM[/b:c1e882bb17]
[/list:u:c1e882bb17]

[kachunga]

øøøEXIM (mactroll) vs Postfix (atropos)???

After figuring out which MTA then what about UW vs Courier??

BTW anybody planning on going to MacHack??

[suranyami]

[quote:7b3fc7b082]As I said before my big peeve with Postfix was getting SMTP AUTH to work. David has gotten around this by setting up POP before SMTP, but I like to send mail through my client’s systems on a regular basis to make sure that they are working. I want to be able to do this without needing a POP/IMAP account on the server. [/quote:7b3fc7b082]

I’d be really interested to hear how this was done.

I figured that since Apple have decided to go for Postfix in Panther, that I’d bite the bullet and install Postfix now in preparation for when it arrives. My first big obstacle was getting SMTP authentication working…

I downloaded the Cyrus SASL libraries, and got a whole slew of make errors, which is pretty discouraging.

SMTP Authentication is an absolute show-stopper in my situation, since ALL of the users are outside the subnet and some of them are using this machine for SMTP even without a POP account.

Anyone had any success with this? How’d ya do it, oh masterful one?

[ybizeul]

I’m trying to achieve the same thing for a customer.
On linux, I used to install postfix-admin. This is a great solution for the GUI. It handles virtual domains, aliases, quota, different levels of administration so that you delegate each domain to a user. Vacation messages can be implemented too, and customized by the user.
Unfortunately, this completely breaks the standard mail system of MacOS X, and you will have to get, or recompile a postfix with mysql support, and install Courier-IMAP in place of Cyrus to make it work on OSX

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