I'm a systems administrator, I use the types of alternatives that are
being mentioned here such as SSH and SFTP. However I've been looking to
add a local email server to exploit the unique benefits of using email.
A local email server would be useful for many purposes as an additional
method for communicating between all the different types of devices on
the network, in particular for being able to send files between them
with only the use of email clients rather than needing to configure
networking.
Additionally email has a lot of unique aspects that SSH and SFTP don't
have, such as being able to alert you when something in particular has
been sent.
Perhaps it might be true that sending large files via email would be
overkill for some people's networks, but for mine I don't think sending
large files via email would be any problem.
I could set up a domain name for the server instead of using an IP
address if that is necessary. I've set up local Apache web servers
with domain names before.
I've seen some links that explain how to use Postfix as a local email
server, such as this one: https://gist.github.com/raelgc/6031274 It
mentions using the Thunderbird email client with the "Unix Mailspool
(Movemail)" setting, but it didn't mention any standard-looking types of
settings. It uses "localhost" which I assume will only work with an
email client that is on the computer where Postfix is running. But
wouldn't it be relatively easy to allow the rest of the network to
access the server as well?
How do most people use Postfix? As far as I can tell most people use it
to enable scripts to send emails as alerts. But how do people receive
those emails if Postfix can't easily be interfaced with email clients?
What is it about private networks that mail programs don't like? Aren't
private networks essentially the same as larger ones where the
difference is mostly just one of configuration?
Thanks for your help.
Jaroslaw Rafa via Postfix-users <mailto:postfix-users@postfix.org>
April 29, 2025 at 6:42 PM
No, email in general (not only Postfix) is not, and never was, a proper
tool to transfer large files. And on local network it's definitely an
"overkill".
For file transfer, you should use tools dedicated to file transfer. It's
just obvious. Right tools for the right job.
Myself, I use just a standard SSH server on my Linux computer (you can
easily install one on OS X as well), and on a mobile device I use a
SCP/SFTP
client to transfer files to/from the computer (there are many such clients
available, the application I use is called Admin Hands, but you may choose
another one). SCP/SFTP should definitely allow you to easily transfer
files
of any size (and without the overhead related to base64 encoding, which
increases size of your file sent by email by at least 33%).
Of course, there are various mobile-specific apps for file transfer,
but for
me SSH/SCP/SFTP has the advantage that it's standard, and it works the
same
way regardless of what device/OS you use it on. I use the same method for
transferring files from/to another computers in my network to my "main"
computer, and I don't have to use different tools on different devices
(and
learn them all).
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