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by Ng Pheng Siong.
Original Post: XMail
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XMail is an SMTP-cum-POP
server with the usual plethora of features such as virtual hosting and
spam/virus protection. XMail works on popular Unixen and Windows.
Building is straightforward. Configuring is similarly
so. Everything is contained in a single directory, by default
/var/MailRoot. This makes it easier for the budding mail system
administrator to come to grips with.
Upon startup, XMail runs several servers: SMTP, POP, finger and its
custom management server. I had disabled access to its finger and
admin services during configuration; even then, XMail started them up.
Since they are supposedly disabled, presumably they don't do
anything. XXX For Internet-facing production usage, best verify this.
There are some obvious security concerns: XMail runs everthing as
root. It creates files of mode 666; in the case of the POP log file,
user passwords are logged in the clear. (To be fair, the docu said to
chmod 700 /var/MailRoot.) It is possible to run XMail as a
non-root uid; the simplest way will require XMail to bind its services
to non-privileged ports.
XMail supposedly logs to syslog, although on my system it logs to its
own output file under /var/MailRoot. So far, I haven't seen failures
being logged.
Overall, XMail is quite easy to get going. Personally, I
prefer Postfix or Exim as an MTA. I'm playing with XMail mainly
because I haven't decided on which POP/IMAP server to go with one of
the aforementioned MTA.
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