Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo mail server

[kashani <kashani-list@badapple.net>]

Tom Brown wrote:
> Hey guys,
> 
> I've been using gentoo on my desktop for several months now. I works
> great. It cut five minutes off my build time when I build our product
> tree. It went from 20 to 15 minutes.
> 
> I setup our email server using Debian. Its been solid as a rock and very
> low maintenance. However, it provides an antiquated environment.
> 
> I'm looking at using gentoo for the email so I'll have an up-to-date
> system. Peformance is fine on the Debian system, but hey, faster is
> always better.
> 
> I was hoping you guys could give me warm fuzzies about stability and
> maintenance with gentoo when it comes to a production server.
> 
> What about major upgrades? If I keep the system updated regularly, is a
> major upgrade necessary?

	I've been running a Gentoo mail server for either work or personal use 
and usually both since 2001. No real problems, but you do have to watch 
some updates especially sasl and courier.

My current system is
Postfix-2.5 At minimum I'd use Postfix-2.2 which has the better syntax 
for your virtual statements.
Postgrey for greylisting, had some issues with sqlgrey.
PostfixAdmin, because using phpmyadmin to manage your accounts and 
domains is futile. I'm still on 2.1 and need to check out the newer 
version. Requires PHP and a webserver.
courier-imap and cyrus-sasl. Thinking about moving to Dovecot since you 
can use dovecot-sasl with Postfix under Gentoo.
Mysql5

It's fully virtual, supports smtp and imap over ssl, sasl, skipped TLS, 
and easy to manage. I do not recommend the Gentoo Virtual How-to, it's 
ancient and silly.

I used to have a how-to on gentoo-wiki which I need to recreate. Maybe 
this weekend.

In regards to stability... don't update right away. When Postfix 2.6 
comes out, give it a month. Or play with it in a virtual server. Same 
with Mysql 5.1. Or whatever. I've run three separate companies on Gentoo 
and never had much of an issue though I always had a test/stage/qa 
environment of some sort. Also keep an eye on the forums and this mail 
list. That'll usually give you a heads up when an update isn't quite right.

kashani