[PLUG] Email on Linux vs MS

[Rich Shepard]

On Wed, 4 Dec 2002, stuart mathews wrote:

> Sorry for this vague request.  I am looking for some direction.

Stuart,

  Go West young man.
 
> An associate of mine and I are trying to help someone identify the optimal path
> for creating a custom-built email system that will forward / route lots of emails.
>  She had assumed the solution would be deployed on Microsoft technology.  As
> a Linux newbie, my instinct is telling me the would be better served to deploy
> this solution on Linux, but I don't know enough about email systems or Linux.
> 
> Can someone give me some pointers on why Linux would be superior for this?

  You'll get a lot of answers that cover every possible aspect, and then
some. I'll try to focus on a few, key issues to get you thinking. Once you
have more specific questions you'll get more specific answers. It would also
help to understand the setting of the "custom-built email system that will
forward / route lots of emails". But, let me offer some thoughts.

  A linux based solution offers these broad advantages: choices (lots of
'em); no viruses; detailed control that's easy to understand, implement and
maintain; low cost (none); runs on all sorts of hardware; easy to keep
secure and upgrade; and works as you work.

  The linux mail system consists of several categories of components. I
assume that you're considering a business system (and not a spam factory!)
and you'll have your own domain name, static IP address and mail server. The
mail server (or Mail Transfer Agent, MTA) is the heart of the system. The
old workhorse is sendmail. Newer, more powerful and easier to use options
abound. I use postfix (as do many others), but there's exim, qmail, smail
and others. The MTA will screen messages it receives before passing them on.
It then sends the message on to the next stage. For outgoing mail that's the
recipient's MTA, for incoming mail it's the MDA.

  The Mail Delivery Agent (MDA) does the local routing (or forwarding, if
necessary) to the recipient's mail box. procmail is the most commonly used
MDA; I don't know that else is out there, but I'm sure there are
alternatives.

  Once the message is in a user's mailbox you'll find a plethora of Mail
User Agents (MUAs). In the Microsoft world there's Outlook/Outlook Express,
Eudora and (perhaps?) Netscrape or mozilla. In linux you have choices for
text-based MUAs (pine, elm, mutt) and graphic-based MUAs (sylpheed, mozilla,
Kmail, evolution, whatever Gnome provides, and many others). Each user can
pick the MUA of her/his choice and it doesn't matter to the system.

That's a start,

Rich

Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President

                       Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM)
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