About:
Postfix is an attempt to provide an alternative to the widely-used Sendmail program. Postfix attempts to be fast, easy to administer, and hopefully secure, while at the same time being sendmail compatible enough to not upset your users.

Author:
Wietse Venema <wietse __at__ porcupine __dot__ org> [contact developer]

Rating:	reset 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
8.78/10.00 (108 votes)

Homepage:
http://www.postfix.org/
Tar/GZ:
ftp://ftp.porcupine.org/[..]ix-release/official/postfix-2.5.1.tar.gz
Mailing list archive:
http://groups.google.com/group/list.postfix.users/topics

Trove categories: [change]

[Environment]		No Input/Output (Daemon)
[Intended Audience]		End Users/Desktop
[License]		OSI Approved :: IBM Public License
[Topic]		Communications :: Email :: Mail Transport Agents

Dependencies: [change]
No dependencies filed

 Branches

Branch	Version	Last release	License	URLs
2.4.x (Stable)	2.4.7	25-Feb-2008	IBM Public License
Development	2.3-20060123	24-Jan-2006	IBM Public License

 Articles referencing this project

Without A Net by jeff covey , in Editorials Sat, May 31st 2008 00:00 Gmail on Home Linux Boxes using Postfix and Fetchmail by Mike Chirico , in Tutorials Sat, Jun 4th 2005 00:00 Red Hat: New postfix packages fix security issue by Patrick Lenz , in Security Wed, Mar 16th 2005 08:02 Red Hat: New postfix packages fix security issues. by Patrick Lenz , in Security Mon, Aug 4th 2003 08:00 SuSE: New postfix packages fix remote DoS attack by Patrick Lenz , in Security Mon, Aug 4th 2003 07:47

Debian: New postfix packages fix remote denial of service, bounce scanning by Patrick Lenz , in Security Sun, Aug 3rd 2003 15:49 Configuring an Open Source Mail Gateway by David Handermann , in Tutorials Sat, May 31st 2003 00:00 Too Much Free Software by Marius Andreiana , in Editorials Sat, Mar 29th 2003 00:00 Absolute BSD by Dan Langille , in Book Reviews Sat, Dec 7th 2002 00:00 [more articles]

 Comments

[»] Some thoughts on Postfix
by Crippler - Feb 17th 2003 19:10:29

Let me get the negatives out of the way FIRST.

1) License sucks. Why couldn't IBM have released this under one of the big licenses like BSD or GPL? If this had been BSD licensed, we'd probably see it overtake Sendmail by now (even in Linux distros).
2) Back end database support. It's been a bit lacking. My understanding from the mailing list archives is that the maintainers are putting security, performance & stability over features. This is a noble cause which I am hesitant to criticize. But as a Postfix user I sometimes feel as if it would better serve me with more flexible back end options.

Stuff I like:
1) Easy to set up. It has a big config file, but it is in plain english and well commented. You don't have to read a book before setting it up.
2) Drop-in replacement for Sendmail. It replaces the command-line sendmail utilities and everything.
3) Secure. You hardly ever hear anything about Postfix vulnerabilities on Bugtraq.
4) Fast. I've set up some large mailing list servers on Postfix and it just rrrrrips.

Overall I give it an 8 out of 10. The license bugs me but there is not a lot that can be done about that now, at least not by the Postfix maintainers (but IBM could retroactively re-release their code under BSD or GPL and Postfix could opt to relicense their copious additions). There isn't a lot of push for this so I won't hold my breath.

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[»] Great
by Thomas - Sep 18th 2001 13:41:37

Forget sendmail, install Postfix - real-drop-in-replacement, nice configruation, fast, reliable - perfect

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[»] Postfix
by naChoZ - Jan 12th 2000 08:40:44

I've been using it since the Postfix 19990317 release and I've never had any trouble with it. Drop in replacement for sendmail that doesn't require aspirin to configure. And performance is *great*, too.

--
Andy Harrison ICQ: 123472 AIM/Y!: AHinMaine

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[»] I'm impressed
by Chris Horry - Jan 5th 2000 09:25:44

And that takes a lot! I tried Postfix after hearing good reports and first impressions are that it's a superb mail server, I managed to make a complete mirror image of my existing sendmail setup in a couple of hours from first downloading it. Looking forward to seeing how well it performs when I start hammering it :-) Thanks!

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[»] postfix is very good
by karellen - Dec 26th 1999 02:58:43

Ok, with the world writable directory fixed postfix became a very good MTA. Eventually I got rid of qmail and installed postfix after several people told me it's fast and reliable. It even supports MySQL database lookups now and other advanced stuff and the IBM license it's distributed under is surprisingly liberal. Postfix has also made it into Debian/Potato. Thanx again Wietse.

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[»] World writable maildrop issue
by Edgard Castro - Mar 7th 1999 19:02:15

As of December 30, 1998, Postfix offers a choice between a
world-writable maildrop directory and a protected one.

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