XMail

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.