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We are looking for a relatively simple mail server. We have two requirements:

  1. Incoming mail can be piped to an arbitrary executable (binary or script)
  2. Users with valid passwords can easily use the server as an outbound relay.
  3. (Preferable) Easy configuration.

We use Postfix on most of our servers, but it seems to be more difficult to configure than necessary. (This is not a question about Postfix, but usually the main issue we have is being able to use #1 or #2, but not both.)

Any suggestions for which mail server fits these requirements?
Our focus is web development, not email hosting, so we don't want to spend too much time on email administration.

We are running Ubuntu 12.04 Server, so something that installs from apt would be nice.

yakatz
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    Email hosting, when done correctly, is not a "set it and forget it" venture. You've admitted that it's not a core competency, so do yourselves (and your users) a favor and let an experienced third-party host your email. – EEAA Apr 27 '12 at 03:24
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    Additionally, if you think postfix is difficult to configure, then you're going to be very pressed to find something that is any easier. Honestly, pay someone to host email for you. – EEAA Apr 27 '12 at 03:26
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    In my opinion, with experience from qmail to Microsoft Exchange, with everything in between, postfix is by far the easiest to use. –  Apr 27 '12 at 03:35
  • @RandolphWest Agreed. :) – EEAA Apr 27 '12 at 03:35
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    @RandolphWest . . . and qmail is only slightly harder to use than chiseling out the email in binary on a stone tablet and sending it to the recipient by oxcart to be re-transcribed into digital form by a highly trained marsupial of some sort. – voretaq7 Apr 27 '12 at 03:42
  • Agreed. And I did it on purpose for three years. Postfix is an absolute pleasure by comparison. It was like a hot summer's day, walking on the beach without shoes, holding the hand of my beautiful spouse. –  Apr 27 '12 at 03:44
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    @Randolph, when you say you did it for three years do you mean the chiseling, oxcart and marsupial? :) – John Gardeniers Apr 27 '12 at 05:15
  • @ErikA We don't want to do email hosting, but if you want to pipe incoming mail to a script, you need to run something. Our actual email is hosted through Google Apps (which I highly recommend) or an instance of cPanel (which works pretty well, although it does have some quirks). One of our systems uses Exchange, but we avoid that when possible. – yakatz Apr 29 '12 at 01:19
  • @yakatz - even with that requirement, you still don't need to self-host anything. fetchmail is perfectly capable of fetching mail from a remote server via IMAPS or POP3S and then piping it to an arbitrary script. – EEAA Apr 29 '12 at 01:22
  • @ErikA I always felt fetchmail to be less reliable. You need to schedule it somehow (if you use CRON, you need to estimate when you will have mail to process or you risk wasting server resources or not processing the mail fast enough) and there is no automatic notification if something goes wrong. When you pipe mail to a script, you are guaranteed to be only dealing with one message at a time and if the script fails, most MTAs I have dealt with will automatically send a NDR back to the original sender. – yakatz Apr 29 '12 at 03:15

3 Answers3

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You should give iRedMail (http://iredmail.org) a try, it matches all your requirements:

And, it's free and open source. :)

Zhang Huangbin
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Your requirements seem unique enough to where you may just be better off writing your own front end for the various features of postfix that you already know how to use. I think you'll end up customizing whatever you choose anyway, so you might as well make it exactly how you want it.

It's not terribly hard once you get the hang of secure filesystems and service manipulation through a (PHP|Ruby|Perl|Python) frontend.

Journeyman Geek
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Wesley
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  • Interesting idea. We tried using Webmin to manage Postfix, but I did not like how that worked out. I am spoiled by cPanel, Google Apps and Exchange making things so easy. – yakatz Apr 29 '12 at 01:20
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I have Postfix pipe incoming messages to SpamAssassin using Amavis on my personal site. (Also had the ClamAV atnivirus, but it was taking too much RAM.) It must be possible to configure Amavis to pipe mail to other programs. And yes, I use the same server for outgoing mail, with password authentication over TLS. This seems to cover both your #1 and #2.

Dmitry Leskov
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