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Server software...

Was looking for some opinions about server services to replace my old server. Currently I have the following services that I was thinking of looking into alternative programs that my offer more in terms of security and options:

sendmail
squirrelmail
wu-ftp

I will be updating to Redhat 8.0 since I already have the disks, any thoughts on replacements for those programs, or should I stick with them? I am always interested in learning new things :D

Was looking into the following:

postfix or qmail
twiggi groupware or some other web-based email
proftp

Any ideas or opinions would be greatly appreciated :D

mta - sendmail is the de-facto standard but I've been poking at qmail more and more and hope to bring it live to replace our current postfix setup. (Nod to jeremy)

Webmail - I have found no reason yet to get rid of SquirrelMail. It's still in active development and supported by loads of plugins. Very happy with it.

Groupware - have a look at Tutos (Sourceforge). If you've got a knack for php you can customize this into a whopper of an app. Built to support a modular API approach for custom apps. Been tinkering for a few months now and like what I see. (I have a long way to go...).

ftp - Still scares me so I don't do it.

I'd say qmail, imp/horde for webmail and i'm giving a try to the sftp that comes with ssh...seemed like a good option...

Mux

Regarding FTP I'd suggest anything other than wu-ftpd. Think of ProFTPd or vsftpd as FTP daemons. These are more secure than wu-ftpd and also offer greater performance.

Check www.proftpd.org and vsftpd.beasts.org

vsftpd is a bit more complicated to set up IMHO. But once it's running it's pretty nice ;)

Quote:

Is vsftpd the right server for me?
If your main requirement from an FTP server is one of the following things then yes, vsftpd is probably the FTP server you are looking for:

Security
Performance
Stability

The only reason you might prefer a different FTP server to vsftpd is if you really need the configurability of one of the more bloated FTP servers. Having said this, note that vsftpd caters for the vast majority of use cases. Even if vsftpd appears to be missing a feature, it is often satisfied by an external component such as PAM or xinetd / tcp_wrappers. In this regard, vsftpd is being a small modular component in the proper spirit of UNIX. Finally, consider moving to vsftpd even if it means sacrificing some whacky feature of your current FTP server. The security, performance and stability gains are waiting for you.

Quote:

ProFTPD Goals
ProFTPD grew out of the desire to have a secure and configurable FTP server, and out of a significant admiration of the Apache web server. There are currently a very limited number of FTP servers running on Unix (or Unix-like) hosts. The most commonly used server is wu-ftpd. While wu-ftpd provides excellent performance and is generally a good product, it lacks numerous features found in newer Win32 FTP servers and has a poor security history. Many people, including the developers who work on ProFTPD, have spent a great deal of time fixing bugs and hacking features into wu-ftpd. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that a complete redesign was necessary in order to implement the configurability and features desired. ProFTPD is not a hack based on any other server, it's an independent source tree from the ground up. A number of well known and high traffic sites use ProFTPD.

In addition to wu-ftpd, there are a few of other FTP servers available which are designed to be light-weight and secure at the expense of configurability. For example, Troll FTP is an excellent FTP daemon which is considerably more secure and less resource-intensive than wu-ftpd. Unfortunately, while it is quite suitable for basic FTP services, it does not offer the feature set required for more sophisticated FTP sites.

Wow markus1982, that was a great in-depth post of FTP servers. Only reason I used wu-ftp was because it was the one that came with Redhat lol. These other ones look really nice... just what I am looking for. I don't have a high volume of FTP traffic, basically only me and 2 others, but the added security and configurability would be nice.

IMP/Horde looks like a very good WebMail suite, something that looks both professional and configurability. Reason I have SquirrelMail was because it was the easiest to set up, but it is lacking in some areas.

mcleodnine - is there any reason you are trying to jump ship on Postfix in favor of qmail?