/ Chris Green wrote on Thu 8.Nov'12 at 10:51:59 +0000 / > On Wed, Nov 07, 2012 at 04:33:58PM -0600, David Champion wrote: > > * On 07 Nov 2012, Derek Martin wrote: > > > On Wed, Nov 07, 2012 at 08:48:08PM +0000, Chris Green wrote: > > > > server retrying if my SMTP server isn't running (or connected). That's > > > > one of the reasons I'd quite like to move away from SMTP. It *should* > > > > be OK but I'm relying on the other end to behave properly. > > > > > > It will. It has to. If it didn't, e-mail on the internet would be > > > horribly unreliable. > > > > I hate to break it to you, but.... :) > > > > I've used IMAP pickup in the past and it's OK for some IMAP servers. A > > year or two ago my employer moved my mailbox to MS Exchange. Exchange > > doesn't (necessarily?) hand you the exact e-mail it received. It > > parses incoming mail, stores the parsed components, and reconstructs > > the message the best it can figure when you pick it up via IMAP or POP. > > Along the way it might modify or remove some components for no good > > reason; for example, multipart/alternative with text/plan and text/html > > invisibly becomes just a text/html message. I've also heard of its > > breaking crypto, although I haven't seen that myself for a while. > > > > So I forward my mail via SMTP away from my employer now. > > > Yes, I realise there are good and bad places that deliver mail to you! :-) > > If I move from SMTP delivery to collecting it myself (from POP3 or IMAP) > it will be from exactly the same source, my Tsohost web hosting service > which (in many people's opinions) is excellent. > > All I have to do is change the ultimate destination of all my E-Mail > from zbmc.eu (whose MX record points at my home LAN) to a POP3 mailbox > on the TsoHost servers and then collect from that POP3 mailbox. > > I'm thinking in fact that I'm going to stay with much the same system as > I already have but my Python filter script will collect E-Mail direct > from the Tsohost POP3 server instead of having it fed into its standard > input by the .forward. I already have *another* Python script that > collects mail from a Tsohost POP3 box so I know how to do that already, > all I need to do is merge a few bits of existing code. > > -- > Chris Green
Hi Chris, personally, i'd stick with what your current set-up. Since I set up my own mta and security software i've never been happier with it. I much prefer the flexibility of being able to control almost all aspects of my mail delivery, reading and sending; including the DNS configuration etc... What I did do, though, is look into OS's and software that provide the security we all need, whether collecting mail from remote IMAP storage or POP3, or having it routed directly using smtp. I stick with BSD systems and use a number of different security software on my end to deal with zombies, malware filtering, spam filtering, etc. They are all generally well documented as you no doubt know, and certainly great efforts have been made to make installation and configuration of these software easy(-ish). The only downfall I think is the time involved with setting up and upgrading and monitoring these things. So, do you have the time and will to invest in doing that? As you've written some nice tools already, it sounds like you know what you're doing so stick with it i'd say. Plus, for me, I find it great fun and interesting learning about these things. I've learned loads by getting stuck in and engrossed in it all. Some people, however, have been there and done that and simply just can't be bothered with it anymore and/or would rather spend their time on something else. Jamie
