Best IMAP server, with regard to security, stability, speed and ease/power of configuration
Morten W. Petersen
I'm setting up a new server which will have IMAP support, and I need to figure
out what the best IMAP server is.
Security is first priority, then stability, speed and configuration. It's a plus
if it supports shared folders.
Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks,
Morten
Stephan Kristow
> I'm setting up a new server which will have IMAP support, and I need to figure
> out what the best IMAP server is.
The best is beyond doubt the Cyrus IMAP Server, who can describe with
the words "efficiency, scalability and performance".
> Security is first priority, then stability, speed and configuration. It's a plus
> if it supports shared folders.
Yes, the cyrus support almost all IMAP possibilities (ACL, Shared
Folders, Partition, SASL Authentication).
The target group of the cyrus is the enterprise sector, so he is a
little bit complex to configure compared to the other IMAP Server (UW
IMAP, Courier).
regards,
stephan
Morten W. Petersen
> Morten W. Petersen wrote:
>
>> I'm setting up a new server which will have IMAP support, and I need
>> to figure
>> out what the best IMAP server is.
>
>
> The best is beyond doubt the Cyrus IMAP Server, who can describe with
> the words "efficiency, scalability and performance".
OK. We've been leaning towards Cyrus, good to hear that others
recommend it too. :)
> Yes, the cyrus support almost all IMAP possibilities (ACL, Shared
> Folders, Partition, SASL Authentication).
> The target group of the cyrus is the enterprise sector, so he is a
> little bit complex to configure compared to the other IMAP Server (UW
> IMAP, Courier).
Does Cyrus support POP?
Regards,
Morten
Ian G Batten
Morten W. Petersen <mor...@nidelven-it.no> wrote:
> > The best is beyond doubt the Cyrus IMAP Server, who can describe with
> > the words "efficiency, scalability and performance".
>
> OK. We've been leaning towards Cyrus, good to hear that others
> recommend it too. :)
Zero unplanned downtime since Jun 1999. About an hour of planned
downtime. Typically 450 imap connections simultaneously at any one
time. Sun Ultra2, with 2x167MHz processors and 1.5GBytes of RAM, plus a
dozen old SCSI disks in RAID 0+1. It rocks.
ian
Ken Murchison
> Does Cyrus support POP?
Yes.
--
Kenneth Murchison Oceana Matrix Ltd.
Software Engineer 21 Princeton Place
716-662-8973 x26 Orchard Park, NY 14127
--PGP Public Key-- http://www.oceana.com/~ken/ksm.pgp
Ken Murchison
> Hi all,
>
> I'm setting up a new server which will have IMAP support, and I need to figure
> out what the best IMAP server is.
>
> Security is first priority, then stability, speed and configuration. It's a plus
> if it supports shared folders.
As far as security is concerned, Cyrus does NOT require local user
accounts as do UW and Courier. Cyrus was designed to be a "back box",
with the only access via the supported protocols -IMAP, POP3, LMTP,
MANAGESIEVE (and NNTP in v2.2).
Mark Crispin
> I'm setting up a new server which will have IMAP support, and I need to figure
> out what the best IMAP server is.
What is "best" depends upon your requirements.
> Security is first priority, then stability, speed and configuration. It's a plus
> if it supports shared folders.
I see that you did not mention "interact with legacy mail stores" or
"co-exist with shell users and their mail." If these two issues are not
requirements, then I would say Cyrus. Cyrus is specifically designed as
an enterprise, black-box (no shell users) server; and for maximum
performance in that environment. Cyrus matches all of your listed
criteria.
If you need interaction with legacy mail stores and/or co-existence with
shell users and their mail, then go with UW imapd. Similarly, for a
server for a SOHO environment, UW is probably much less hassle. UW
matches your listed criteria, but you have to use a non-default
configuration to get some of these (e.g. shared mailboxes).
I noticed that you did not mention protocol compliance. That should be on
your list of requirements since there are servers which are known to have
compliance bugs. Fortunately, both UW and Cyrus satisfy this requirement.
FWIW, I'm the author/maintainer of UW imapd; but I have no hesitation to
recommend Cyrus to people who are Cyrus' target audience. We work very
closely together, and regularly hold code-test bakeoffs.
A good reference that compares Cyrus and UW and helps you determine which
is right for you is "Managing IMAP", by Dianna Mullet & Kevin Mullet,
published by O'Reilly, ISBN 0-596-00012-X. Even though your choice is
almost certainly doing to be Cyrus, you should get this book anyway as a
reference source for how to set up and configure your server.
-- Mark --
http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Vahid
If your MTA uses Maildir, then I would suggest courier-imap.
-Vahid.
Sam
> As far as security is concerned, Cyrus does NOT require local user
> accounts as do UW and Courier.
Courier does not require local user accounts. Courier will work with either
system accounts, or virtual mailboxes, using LDAP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, GDBM,
or DB. With some care, a server may be configured to use both system and
virtual mailboxes.