Hi,

I am trying my hands on Mail Transfer Agents for the first time. I have downloaded some CBTs for postfix, sendmail and qmail. I am using RHEL 5.0

Well, I just wanted to know, which one be a good one to learn. I mean I want to go for the one which is widely used.

Is learning DNS/BIND a pre-requisite for mail agents ?

Pls suggest.

Also, if someone needs links of CBTs, please tell me. I do not know whether posting links here is allowed or not.

Thanks in adv.

Regards,
VIKAS

Sendmail is usually the default on almost all distributions and Unix systems. It's the oldest and probably most popular but is a beast. You'll learn a lot about MTA's by using and configuring sendmail.

The next option is Postfix. It's like Sendmail but easier to install, configure and maintain. Go with it as well as it's widely used now and gaining ground on sendmail.

My personal opinion about qmail is it's a piece of shit. You'll find yourself spending more time configuring, tweaking, troubleshooting this crappy MTA than it's worth. And don't expect any help from the developer DJB, he's a complete ass and will tell you to just go read the docs. It has some cool perks but most admins can't be bothered with the countless hours in playing around with an MTA.

When it comes to MTA's for admins, most get it working and be done with it, just let it do it's thing and deliver messages..

And you should at least be familiar with DNS and Bind that involves anything related to resolving hostnames.

Thanks a million for the very useful info trickykid, I will go for postfix. Will look for some more installation docs/procedures for "configuring DNS/BIND" before starting up with CBT.

Thanks again.

Regards,
VIKAS