5 ms·

I haven't run across many who use Exim. Any benefits over postgress/dovecot?

by sschueller 6y ago

rrmm 6y ago
Wasn't exim the default mailer for many distros?
- tyingq 6y ago
  It's default for Debian: https://packages.debian.org/buster/default-mta https://packages.debian.org/buster/default-mta Though not for RedHat or Ubuntu, both use postfix.
gerdesj 6y ago
Postgres is a db and Dovecot is a IMAP/POP thing. Exim is a MTA and I think you meant to say Postfix 8) I personally use Exim. The developers of both have collaborated as required with each other in the past over certain issues and both projects are very mature. They are rather different beasts and there are loads of articles out there comparing them.
luckylion 6y ago
exim allows much more customization. Most people don't need that level of customization, and postfix is definitely easier to use precisely because you just write settings, you don't write configuration logic. I'm still using exim, but not for any specific reason. It's just what I used in the beginning and I never had a reason to change.
dijit 6y ago
EXIM is much easier to configure than postfix. Postfix is faster than EXIM. They are both mail-trasport daemons (basically mail relays). dovecot is comparable to Cyrus, it's not a mail relay, it's POP/IMAP server used for accessing mail from storage.
- wtracy 6y ago
  > EXIM is much easier to configure than postfix. Postfix is faster than EXIM. You might have the two reversed? I don't have hands-on experience with Exim, but every "getting started with email" document on the internet seems to recommend Postfix as easier for a beginner to install.
  - lstodd 6y ago
    Before Debian made exim default and made an ungodly mess of macros and unintelligible crap out of their config, it was pretty simple to configure. In fact, as an old hand (been dealing with exim configs since 2001), the very first thing I did and still do is delete the default debian hell and copy-paste a simple two-screen config which then needs only 3-4 lines tweaked.
  - dijit 6y ago
    I don't have them reversed, EXIM is indeed far easier. Postfix has a high learning curve; the master.cf vs main.cf and the "chaining" of email filters (milters) is a lot more of a hurdle than exims comparatively simple configuration. The issue is mostly that postfix is installed by default more places, so it's the default, much like sendmail was. And that setting up an MTA is quite difficult anyway. It's basically an accident of history. But both are fine in their own right, neither is inferior to the other, just trade offs.
- AtomicOrbital 6y ago
  to offload some of the postfix install complexity this repo is actively maintained ... been using it in prod for a few years with no issues ... postfix running on debian inside a docker container https://github.com/tomav/docker-mailserver https://github.com/tomav/docker-mailserver
johndubchak 6y ago
It likely has everything to do with our current President’s inability to strike a diplomatic tone in any public discourse. Please don’t down vote me for an obvious statement, but I do feel the maturity of Political discourse was brought to the school playground level with the election in 2016.
- johndubchak 6y ago
  Apologies, app posted reply to wrong comment.
gurrone 6y ago
Well still the default mta on Debian, so it has some userbase, at least as a local mta. Might catch some by surprise, but maybe those systems should not have had direct exposure to the internet in the first place.
Stranger43 6y ago
It's supposed to be lighter for purely local installations with an single binary, and was the default mta for Debian for a long time for mostly that reason. some of the points made doing that decision is available here https://wiki.debian.org/Debate/DefaultMTA#Comparison https://wiki.debian.org/Debate/DefaultMTA#Comparison For the most part postfix/dovecot have become the default for full scale mail servers but back when the Debian defaults were decided there was still some uncertainty about what would replace sendmailNG as the lightweight default mta.
ttul 6y ago
IMHO, Exim's configuration is horrendously complicated. That's not to say that Postfix is a piece of cake; however, Postfix has fewer bells and whistles. For example, I struggle to comprehend the "router" system: https://www.exim.org/exim-html-current/doc/html/spec_html/ch-the_manualroute_router.html https://www.exim.org/exim-html-current/doc/html/spec_html/ch...
- lstodd 6y ago
  Exim's configuration is very expressive. Being able to do complex things has the tradeoff of being able to get lost in the complex things you've done, that's a given. But I wouldn't call it complicated, not really. Expansions usually bite, but it had a REPL-like facility for getting them right since forever. The rest is pretty nice and clean DSL in my opinion.
StreamBright 6y ago
I prefer NodeJS and Docker.

I haven't run across many who use Exim. Any benefits over postgress/dovecot?

rrmm 6y ago

Wasn't exim the default mailer for many distros?

tyingq 6y ago
It's default for Debian: https://packages.debian.org/buster/default-mta https://packages.debian.org/buster/default-mta Though not for RedHat or Ubuntu, both use postfix.

gerdesj 6y ago

Postgres is a db and Dovecot is a IMAP/POP thing. Exim is a MTA and I think you meant to say Postfix 8) I personally use Exim. The developers of both have collaborated as required with each other in the past over certain issues and both projects are very mature. They are rather different beasts and there are loads of articles out there comparing them.

luckylion 6y ago

exim allows much more customization. Most people don't need that level of customization, and postfix is definitely easier to use precisely because you just write settings, you don't write configuration logic. I'm still using exim, but not for any specific reason. It's just what I used in the beginning and I never had a reason to change.

dijit 6y ago

EXIM is much easier to configure than postfix. Postfix is faster than EXIM. They are both mail-trasport daemons (basically mail relays). dovecot is comparable to Cyrus, it's not a mail relay, it's POP/IMAP server used for accessing mail from storage.

wtracy 6y ago
> EXIM is much easier to configure than postfix. Postfix is faster than EXIM. You might have the two reversed? I don't have hands-on experience with Exim, but every "getting started with email" document on the internet seems to recommend Postfix as easier for a beginner to install.
- lstodd 6y ago
  Before Debian made exim default and made an ungodly mess of macros and unintelligible crap out of their config, it was pretty simple to configure. In fact, as an old hand (been dealing with exim configs since 2001), the very first thing I did and still do is delete the default debian hell and copy-paste a simple two-screen config which then needs only 3-4 lines tweaked.
- dijit 6y ago
  I don't have them reversed, EXIM is indeed far easier. Postfix has a high learning curve; the master.cf vs main.cf and the "chaining" of email filters (milters) is a lot more of a hurdle than exims comparatively simple configuration. The issue is mostly that postfix is installed by default more places, so it's the default, much like sendmail was. And that setting up an MTA is quite difficult anyway. It's basically an accident of history. But both are fine in their own right, neither is inferior to the other, just trade offs.
AtomicOrbital 6y ago
to offload some of the postfix install complexity this repo is actively maintained ... been using it in prod for a few years with no issues ... postfix running on debian inside a docker container https://github.com/tomav/docker-mailserver https://github.com/tomav/docker-mailserver

johndubchak 6y ago

It likely has everything to do with our current President’s inability to strike a diplomatic tone in any public discourse. Please don’t down vote me for an obvious statement, but I do feel the maturity of Political discourse was brought to the school playground level with the election in 2016.

johndubchak 6y ago
Apologies, app posted reply to wrong comment.

gurrone 6y ago

Well still the default mta on Debian, so it has some userbase, at least as a local mta. Might catch some by surprise, but maybe those systems should not have had direct exposure to the internet in the first place.

Stranger43 6y ago

It's supposed to be lighter for purely local installations with an single binary, and was the default mta for Debian for a long time for mostly that reason. some of the points made doing that decision is available here https://wiki.debian.org/Debate/DefaultMTA#Comparison https://wiki.debian.org/Debate/DefaultMTA#Comparison For the most part postfix/dovecot have become the default for full scale mail servers but back when the Debian defaults were decided there was still some uncertainty about what would replace sendmailNG as the lightweight default mta.

ttul 6y ago

IMHO, Exim's configuration is horrendously complicated. That's not to say that Postfix is a piece of cake; however, Postfix has fewer bells and whistles. For example, I struggle to comprehend the "router" system: https://www.exim.org/exim-html-current/doc/html/spec_html/ch-the_manualroute_router.html https://www.exim.org/exim-html-current/doc/html/spec_html/ch...

lstodd 6y ago
Exim's configuration is very expressive. Being able to do complex things has the tradeoff of being able to get lost in the complex things you've done, that's a given. But I wouldn't call it complicated, not really. Expansions usually bite, but it had a REPL-like facility for getting them right since forever. The rest is pretty nice and clean DSL in my opinion.

StreamBright 6y ago

I prefer NodeJS and Docker.