[Sysadmin] Should we switch mail server software?

[Eduardo Kienetz]

On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 6:33 PM, William Anderson <neuro at well.com> wrote:
> Eduardo Kienetz wrote:
>> [snip]
>>
>> Well, I think what we should consider are the performance benefits of
>> switching to another MTA. Migrating is not a huge problem as long as
>
> It's not a matter of performance, it's more maintenance.

Maintenance? What does one need do on a regular basis on a mail
server, specially one that doesn't really host any mailboxes (as
described below) ?

>> we continue using Maildir format (we could just move the mail files).
>> Do we use .qmail files stuff? That could be a problem if migrating...
>
> We don't really host any mailboxes on tempest.  All evolt mail is list
> based or forwarded elsewhere.

ouch, I didn't know that, and that changes everything ;)

>> The ideal solution if keeping qmail would be to compile and create
>> .deb packages ourselves ;)
>
> Ugly.  Whose going to maintain such packages, you?  You, Lieutenant
> Weinberg?  That's far from ideal, imho.

Maintain? Didn't someone point out qmailrocks package was last changed in 2006?
So we could as well have our own .deb just not to lose the package
management and never change it again if not strictly needed. When was
last bug found on qmail?

>> We also use spamassassin, don't we?
>>
>> So, anyway, perhaps we can keep using Qmail and analyse the need of
>> migration later (as we could install some other mta and migrate more
>> easily).
>
> That doesn't make sense given we're starting from a clean slate on tron
> versus a very much hacked about with install of qmail on tempest.
> Better to move now than later, and better not to have to fuck about with
> qmail more than we have to, i.e. not at all.

Given the fact that we don't really host mailboxes, I'd keep qmail
since that's what apparently would require less 'maintenance' (I don't
see much point in changing if we don't host mailboxes and we're not
aiming for performance).

-- 
Eduardo Bacchi Kienetz