[Sysadmin] setting up qmail

[David Kaufman]

So last time, on tempest, we installed qmail from source iirc.  But I've 
been running qmail on debian, using the "unofficial" deb packages from 
here:

  http://smarden.sunsite.dk/pape/Debian/

ever since *woody* ...so I wonder if anyone objects to my adding that repo 
to the apt sources list, and letting the package management system install 
and manage qmail.  I'd also prefer to run djbdns than bind, and would 
volunteer to be responsible for its administration.

What do you guys think?  Strong feelings one way or 'tuther?  Pros?  Cons? 
(Rants?)

If the group prefers the "Life With Qmail" approach, or we need qmail 
patches that are not "packaged", and/or everyone just prefers to stick with 
bind, that's fine too.  I mention bind only because I see someone installed 
dnscache on tempest.

FYI: These qmail packages are only "unofficial" due to the previously 
non-free license on all of Dan Bernstein's software.  Since Dan has since 
released all his software into the public domain (last year), Gerrit has 
packaged djbdns, daemontools and ucspi and these are now officially 
available for lenny and sid (testing and unstable).

But he's run into some political problems.  He posts a July 2008 email he 
received from the dbean ftpmasters that says, among other things, "we are 
all of the opinion that qmail should die", "we *STRONGLY* ask you to 
reconsider uploading those packages", "Qmail is dead upstream and requires 
a whole set of patches to even begin to work in the manner expected of a 
modern MTA", and "we see no need to add qmail to the archive".

Damn qmail haters.  I'm sure they will give in eventually though -- qmail 
is far too cool to be excluded from debian, now that it's free.  And if 
they never so, maybe our friends over at Canonical will package it into 
Ubuntu instead, and ten (thousand) times as many users will get to feel the 
qmail goodness :-)

-dave