Customer Reviews

The Book of Postfix: State-of-the-Art Message Transport

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

O.K, finally the book arrived after waiting what I believe must have been nearly a year by now.

In the above mentioned book Patrick Koetter and Ralf Hildebrandt are walking you through the basic setup options and everyday scenarios a typical administrator will come across.

I have been setting up postfix not the first time. I understand that Patrick
and Ralf are doing an outstanding job taking the reader by the hand. I dont
want to push it, but they almost make it look like configuring postfix is a walk on a spring sundays shiny, sunny afternoon.

The book basically pays for itself within a couple of days, especially
taking into account the research time you would need to carefully find out the many details which are hidden in the book. This book gives you the best "Bang for the buck". Short precise descriptions, lots of tips and tricks all the way along and tutorials for far more scenarios than I could have imagined.

When I did the setup for a postfix server the first time without the book (80
user accounts + multiple domains + anti virus + anti spam + pop-before-smtp +
sasl + etc.) it took me not less than a month and a whole lot of headaches and long overtimes.

Those issues are gone. If I would have had the book at that time,
that alone could have saved me at least 2 weeks.

"The book of postfix" is an excellent wholesight INTRODUCTION for mail server
administrators. The book contains more scenarios than the average joe sysadmin can imagine. ALL are thoroughly described.

After the first 50 pages (Chapter 1-5) you will be able to setup a basic
single domain mail server (network based or dial up version), and on top of
that, have a clear understanding what each of the 20+ processes of postfix are
doing. That alone is a sensation itself, knowing the complexity of the topic
mail server !!

The Chapters 6-12 are focused completely on contents control. After a short
intro to the message components (Envelope, Header, Body and
Attachments) in Chapter 6 Patrick and Ralf have assigning not less than 2
separate chapters (each) for Restrictions, Checks and Filters.

The first chapter always describes the complex theory behind it and the second
chapter follows up with practical samples. Its like you have your own
personal instructor right next to you.

Ralf and Patrick walk you through the necessary tasks all the way. They
spotted the most typical mistakes and severe points to watch out for and
mention them in a short note.

What makes the book also very appealing is the simple fact that it is VERY
compact, considering the many tips and tricks which would take you normally
years to get to that experienced level.

The descriptions are kept short and straight to the point. Every single page
contains so many thoroughly researched details. In fact the book is so cram packed with information, that I remember that at some point I ended up having marked most of the page. ;-)

This book is easily worth 5 times the price, considering the time saving
factor it will give you at your daily work.

What I havent mentioned yet is that the book also includes many setup
scenarios for advanced users (Chapters13 -22) like Mail gateways, Multi DNS
setups, SMTP authentication, Security, Chroot, Tuning and a very big chapter
which summarises the setup procedure for a complete mail system (including
SASL Courier maildrop + Lmtp , LDAP etc. )

The appendix completes the book with installation instructions,
Troubleshooting checklists, a Glossary and finally with a

very detailed 16 page index !!

at the end which contains any keyword I could possibly think of.

The cream would have been if they would have included something that I would
like to call a detachable "Installation & troubleshotting cheat sheet".

So far this is the best mail server book which I came across. I wouldnt be to
surprised if it is nominated as the "Best book in 2005" or if your favourite
bookstore doesnt have it anymore as the waiting list is probably a long one.

For now and the near future I make sure its close to wherever I am to make the
most use of it.

If I remember correctly, I ordered the book more than 1 year ago. Let me tell
you that it was worth to wait for it, all the way.

Thanks to Ralf and Patrick for a first class mail server administration book.

I instantly hope that Patrick and Ralf will find the time to write a second
book for advanced user scenarios.


Summary for Book of Postfix :

"The Book of Postfix" from Patrick Koetter and Ralf Hildebrandt could easily
be named "Book of 101+ Postfix Tutorials". The carefully prepared "lessons"
serve perfectly to study and understand any of the 20+ single postfix processes itself, as well as the over all system functions of Postfix.

Sooo, to sum it all up in one sentence, this book is for those

- who have only one life,
- or those whose wife is complaining that you never have enough time for her
- or those whose boss or manager shouts, that (again) you are to slow setting up the mail server
- besides the fact that you have the pressure to make sure
that the server is secure, reliable and 100% correctly setup.

If any of the above points apply to you than you will find that this book is your best friend for a long time to come.

I picked this up to help me get Postfix running on my Mac - which it did nicely. I doubt any Postfix admin will be disappointed with this book, although it has way more information than I need at this point... Always a good thing when a book answers your questions now and can answer new questions in the future. =)

I'm no Postfix expert, but I this book is incredibly detailed and probably doesn't leave anything out. I really like the fact that it doesn't just tip-toe through the config files and options. It goes into a lot of detail, with a lot of instruction and examples. More importantly, it steps you though how to test your configuration to verify any changes you make.

The appendix describes how to install Postfix on Debian Linux or Red Hat Linux, so if you need detailed installation instructions for other platforms, you need to look elsewhere. However, once you get Postfix installed, this book will not disappoint.

Very well done.

I own all the books on this subject that I know of -- the two others being Kyle Dent's book "Postfix: The Definitive Guide" (written with Wietse Venema and published by O'Reilly), and "Postfix" by Richard Blum.

Ralf is one of those kinds of guys that participates actively on various Postfix-related mailing lists, and widely shares his knowledge with anyone who needs help. And he has an excellent style of writing.

Normally, O'Reilly books are the definitive standard by which all other technical books are measured. In this case, while Kyle's book was co-written by the author of the software, I think that Ralf has the better book.

This book, all in all, is a great book. It has great documentation, even a little bit on hard-to-find/obscure topics. I would have given this book a 5 star rating except for my two biggest problems with the book:
1) I suggest you review the books errata at http://www.postfix-book.com/errata.html there are some glaring mistakes made, and I wish they could have been fixed before the book went to printing. I understand that nothing is perfect, and that there are misprints and any number of errors that can occur, but this is a big problem in technical books.
2) While the book does offer examples, descriptions, and build notes about building Postfix, I think it is missing a larger troubleshooting chapter. I think the book needs to dive in further and talk about more configuration conflicts that can occur, and needs to talk the user through the troubleshooting steps, more clearly, and give a more consise error message that a user may get running Postfix.

After talking about my two biggest gripes about this book, I will finish by saying this is a very good book, and I do completely recommend buying this book if you plan on running Postfix.

I'm a linux newbie trying to explore its powerful features and experimenting with open source technology. This book is a great help for me as a linux newbie in setting up a mail server. Howeer, just make sure you visit the website of this book because there are many corrections. I hope an improved version of the book will be released soon.

If you can only afford one book on Postfix, make it this one. I already had Postfix, the Definitive guide (which is a very good book). However, this book will take you beyond simply getting Postfix up and running.

I was able to get Postfix working with Amavisd-new to integrate virus scanning and SpamAssassin. Previously I had tried to do that using only the package documentation and what I could find online; I gave it up because I just couldn't spend any more time. Getting virus and spam filtering working (for me) justified the cost of the book.

In addition, I have been able to implement LDAP and several security measures using this book. Chapter 19, A Company Mail Server is invaluable; it took a little study time for me, but now I have a mail server I could not have achieved with my experience level without this book.

For whatever it is worth, when I started this project I had dial in service and implemented Postfix using dial in; so if you are still doing dialup, you can make a working server. Now I have broadband and the transition was painless.

My only previous experience was with Sendmail and MS Exchange. Using this book, you can implement Postfix securely. I was also able to integrate Courier Maildrop using this book, which gives me the further advantage of being able to write custom filters and impose quotas on a per user basis.

Any reasonably savvy user/administrator can create a secure and dependable mail server using only this book as a reference.

Nuff said! 5 stars - Definitely Recommended

"Postfix, State-of-the-Art Message Transport," fills at least some of the gaps one is confronted with when making a rather major transition from other MTAs like sendmail to postfix. While the initial installation and configuration of Postfix has generally been trivialized, there are indeed such a plethora of options (and rightly so, as many settings one established for sendmail are equally desirable in postfix) that searching via the Web for the right combinations of parameters to achieve a particular result can be very frustrating. This book does provide some solid, practical configuration examples and above all, some in-depth explanations of various security models (including TLS), LDAP-based authentication, and many other useful topics.

Some things, however, are glossed over and left to the tyro to figure out solo. All-important parameters such as smtpd_client_restrictions are glossed over. On the other hand, some parameters are covered in great detail, so overall, treatment of many of the hundreds of configuration parameters is uneven. Even though published in 2005, things are evolving rapidly enough in postfix that certain newer parameters, such as smtpd_junk_command_limit, are evidently not discussed here.

Still, this work represents a good example of what can be done to make life easier for the postfix administrator by collecting a lot of information in one tome and alleviating some of the frustration of long Web searches to hunt for answers to esoteric (and not so esoteric) postfix questions. I am overall quite pleased with this book and would recommend it to postfix administrators of all levels.

I purchased and read The Book of Postfix because I'm always interested in learning something new. This certainly is one hell of a book!

I'm an Exim guy myself, and I swear by the magic that Exim lets me do with a piece of mail. Ralf Hildebrandt and Patrick Koetter have certainly done a fabulous job with their book, and they have managed to make me consider using Postfix on my next project. They concisely, clearly and very beautifully bring forward how to use Postfix in real-world situations. Clear diagrams illustrate every concept, and the book is packed full of tips & real-world configurations, including exporting users from a Microsoft Exchange server to use in a Postfix gateway.

I think the book is worth its price in chapter fifteen alone: Understanding SMTP Authentication carries the only decent documentation about Cyrus SASL I've ever had the pleasure to read. An invaluable resource for any LDAP guy as well!

All in all, a most pleasurable experience.

These two did a great job on writing a Postfix book that is actuall y helpful. The authors spared us the standard first 4 chapters of junk and got straight to the point. Lots of tips for postfix with detailed explanations. If you run Postfix, get this book.

Thorough and easy to understand. I don't know how I would have learned Postfix without this book. Starting with the very basics, such as relaying mail between users on a single system, it progresses logically and naturally to all the subjects you might need to know about, such as smtpd restrictions, filtering tools, SMTP authentication, TLS communication, and so forth.

One thing I really enjoy about this book is that it goes beyond simple configuration examples to explain how postfix actually works. Individual daemons and command-line tools are described in detail. Reading the man pages and postfix docs simply won't give you an overarching view of how postfix works like you will get in this book. Also, the formatting of the book is very nice - well structured, with a sensible use of headers, font-weight, lists, and such like to make the content easy to follow. You'll get the most out of this book if you simply start at the beginning, and work your way through at a steady pace.

It should be noted that, at the time of this review (2011) the book is reaching the outer-edge of being "dated". It seems to have been designed primary for postfix version 2.1, but now we are up to version 2.8 stable. Personally, this hasn't caused any problems for me at all as I have implemented the configurations described in the book, but I imagine there must be some differences somewhere.