Learn About Postfix Email Server

Postfix is an MTA, a server for sending and receiving email. Postfix was designed to be faster, more secure, and easier to configure than the ancient and widely used Sendmail MTA. If you are planning to run your own small email server, you should definitely be looking seriously at Postfix.

Linux Journal (subscribe [with $5 Bonus]) has just posted on their web site Chapter 5 of an excellent book on Postfix, uncryptically called The Book of Postfix: State-of-the-Art Message Transport.

The article itself is an overview of the Postfix architecture, which is made up of many separate programs all operating in concert to get email delivered when and where it belongs. The article may be a bit technical, especially taken outside the context of the book, but it is certainly a representative sample of the expertise that went into the book. If Chapter 5 fails to convince, you can also read Chapter 25 from the book's official web site. Recommended if you are looking to run your own email server.

For those can't eat just one, you may also want to check out Postfix: The Definitive Guide from O'Reilly. O'Reilly's definitive guides never fail to impress, and although this one is a few years old, it is still packed with valuable knowledge that remains valid.

Of course, after reading what's involved, you may decide to give up the dream of running your own email server. Often it's easier to pay someone else to worry about spam and security issues. But for the control freak, there is no substitute for root.