thoroughfare said:
I had wondered if DA could support different software, perhaps using some kind of modular system.
If DA were to go this route then who would be responsible for updates, security, and even for whether or not DA continued to work as all the various software was updated, found to have exploits, etc.?
DA staff? I'd doubt it. Not unless the product sold for double or triple what it does now.
I think qmail would be more secure than Exim...
WARNING: This may sound like a rant. It's really not, it's a well studied response made by someone who was a Plesk Gold partner for long enough to discover exactly what's wrong with qmail.
In fact qmail was one of the main reasons I left the Plesk environment.
You're jokiing, right? Qmail has no ongoing development, and Dan Bernstein prohibits others from actively working on the core program so unless Dan finds a reason to do something, no chance of ongoing development.
In fact Dan even points out that you and I have no continuing right to use qmail except that for the moment he gives us that right, which he can take away at any time.
Qmail is the least configurable MTA there is; you can only configure things written into it when it was first conceived.
Should you want to develop changes to it you're forbidden from including those changes in your own distriibution, even within your own business environment.
Which means that any changes to qmail, including many that make it at least usable, must be distributed separately and installed and patched separately on each server you configure.
The Pop server that comes with it breaks completely when an email arrives with an open square bracket "[" and no closing square bracket "]" in the ID field.
You can't remove emails from the queue without shutting down the server.
If your partition holding the queue fills up you can't move the queue to another partition.
qmail even offer rewards to people who can find an exploit.
Exploits aren't the only problems a program can have.
There's no way I can, wihtout major hacking (and patches I'd have to deliver and install separately) make SpamBlocker (see the thread on this forum) work with qmail; I'd have to run separate systems to block spam on a per-domain/per-user basis; with exim it's just a few lines added to the config file.
There are those who would argue that qmail was a good (some would even argue great) MTA when it was first developed.
Years later it suffers severely.
When new concepts come out (example: SPF) the exim community works with the exim author and there's an immediate accommodation made for those who want to use them.
With qmail you go ahead and develop it yourself and then offer a patch so anyone else who wants it has to go and patch their own software.
Any plans for this in future?
I sure hope not.
We left Plesk mainly because we weren't happy with one particular included program: qmail.
We're very happy with the choices DA has made so far, and I'd hope we leave the DA staff alone to continue making the good decisions they've been making.
And I hope you'll find a platform that has exactly the programs you feel most comfortable with, as well.
Jeff
They'll always be arguments over this though... it's all opinion.