This is my first post so please be gentle.
I would like to get some opinions on the Best Mailserver in the Universe.
Is there a more appropriate list for this question?
I have looked at Communigate Pro, IMAIL, and others.
I am interested in integrated solution that can scale to handle 500k
accounts
Any experience good / bad would be great.
Thanks
/SF
Fisher, Shawn wrote:
I would like to get some opinions on the Best Mailserver in the Universe.
Is there a more appropriate list for this question?
I'm partial to sendmail due to the grandfather clause, but if I could go back in time and redesign everything, I'd be a diehard postfix fan. I have seen postfix and sendmail used in mail servers handling over 30 Million accounts. Good enough for ya?
-Jack
I'm a die-hard exim fan (www.exim.org) which is used by quite a few ISPs here in the UK for volume VISPs (Freeserve, Demon and Mailbox spring to mind).
I'm even more of a die-hard fan since I discovered it did localscan plugins.
None of the Windows mail servers listed above or the others such as Mailsite, MDaemon, Merak, etc. are capable of more than 10-20k active users. Forget about 500k with any you have listed. If you want a solid mail server which WILL handle 500k users and will run on Windows and most *nix platforms, look at Surgemail from http://www.netwinsite.com It is incredibly scalable and VERY fast. It uses a spam assassin-like filter which is written in C so it is at least 20-100 times faster than spam assassin and 95% as effective. It includes support for AVAST anti-virus and the webmail program is powerful, fast, and includes support for PGP. It is an AWESOME product and the support and developers are top notch too. I don't have any vested interest in the company, but I am a very happy customer. (They also make DNews which many people here are probably familiar with)
-Robert
Tellurian Networks - The Ultimate Internet Connection
http://www.tellurian.com | 888-TELLURIAN | 973-300-9211
"Good will, like a good name, is got by many actions, and lost by one." - Francis Jeffrey
and most *nix platforms, look at Surgemail from http://www.netwinsite.com
It is incredibly scalable and VERY fast.
Got any benchmarks?
We have tested all of them. We process several million messages per day for tellurian.com. The only server which doesn't die immediately or within 30-60 minutes is Surgemail. All others are crippled by multi-threaded and multi-homed dictionary attacks very quickly. I am speaking only of Win32 servers. That is what he asked for.
It uses a spam assassin-like
filter which is written in C so it is at least 20-100 times faster than
spam assassin and 95% as effective.Again, benchmarks, please.
Spam assassin could not handle the load and choked on the mail volume. We were only able to process 1-2 messages per second with spam assassin. (not running spamc/spamd since it doesn't work on Win32) We can now peak at 50-100 messages per second without any problem. The ruleset is completely customizable and it includes a distributed razor-like checksuming spamtrap database. Even without Bayes capability, with thousands of messages per day, I only receive one or two false positves or false negatives per week.
In particular, I'd also like to see effectiveness benchmarks, such as the ones recently reported at <http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/964/>\. Here, SpamAssassin won as a non-learning filter, but it also has a Bayesian/learning mode that would allow it to perform as well as or better than any of the other learning types. Of course, they tested version 2.55 and 2.60 is already available, so that would also make a difference.
Unfortunately, spam assassin is so effective and popular that spammers are using the rules to game SA now. We use a different ruleset than SA so we are less susceptible to forced false negatives.
It includes support for AVAST
anti-virusAny other anti-virus solutions supported? AMaViS and amavisd-new support something like thirty different plug-in modules that you can use.
Sure. You can use any command line scanner. Norton, McAfee, RAV, whatever... We were using RAV until a week ago when we decided to switch to AVAST.
and the webmail program is powerful, fast, and includes
support for PGP.Webmail is another aspect of the overall system. Myself, I've found that many webmail systems are too dependant on support for javascript in the browser. In particular, IMP/horde has a problem in this area. We found that TWIG was the best webmail application we could find, although I've also heard good things about SquirrelMail. There are many others also listed at <http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Internet/Clients/Mail/Web-Based/>\.
It is a standard IMAP/POP/SMTP server so you can use any webmail you want. The one which is included is very fast and powerful. It includes almost any feature a full featured email client should have. View source, view headers, PGP, redirect, rules, anti-spam rules and exceptions.
It is an AWESOME product and the support and
developers are top notch too. I don't have any vested interest in
the company, but I am a very happy customer. (They also make DNews
which many people here are probably familiar with)DNews I am familiar with. Not bad for what it is, but Diablo is much more scalable. It's also more difficult to manage, but the best-run large news providers in the world that I know of are all using Diablo.
Many also use Cyclone and Typhoon too. I didn't say that DNews was the most scalable server, but that people would know the company by it. 
I haven't wasted my time or bandwidth running a news server for many years so I can't comment on news server scalability.
-Robert
Tellurian Networks - The Ultimate Internet Connection
http://www.tellurian.com | 888-TELLURIAN | 973-300-9211
"Good will, like a good name, is got by many actions, and lost by one." - Francis Jeffrey
Communigate Pro is not a Windows mail server... It runs on nearly
everything; and can handle millions of accounts (it has extensive
clustering support). Check their website: www.stalker.com for specs.
--vadim
I stand corrected. I was only familiar with the Windows version. Thanks for the heads up. Apologies to all.
-Robert
Tellurian Networks - The Ultimate Internet Connection
http://www.tellurian.com | 888-TELLURIAN | 973-300-9211
"Good will, like a good name, is got by many actions, and lost by one." - Francis Jeffrey