Postfix [Paperback]

Richard Blum (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0672321149 | ISBN-13: 978-0672321146 | Publication Date: May 25, 2001 | Edition: 1

This book will offer broad coverage to instruct both the large ISP and the small business network administrator on how to install and configure a full featured Internet email system with a minimum amount of expense. This is possible using the Linux Operating System which supplies all of the necessary server software, the Postfix email software package, and Public Domain client email software on the client PC's. This book also includes educational information that can be used by network administrators in using Postfix to connect an office email server to an ISP. The Postfix email software package is in widely used on the Internet without any books documenting how to install, configure, and operate the email server. This book will provide all the information needed to run Postfix effectively and efficiently.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Without requiring its administrators to understand the complexities that are characteristic of Sendmail, Postfix offers electronic mail services reliably and with considerable configurability. The program is pretty easy to set up and get going, so it's possible for Postfix, Richard Blum's commendable book about the mail server, to do a good job of explaining installation and have room left over for lots of advanced hints and tricks. This book will serve well on the bookshelf of anyone who's decided to base mail services on Postfix. It also makes a good read for those weighing, in advance of deployment, the relative merits of multiple Unix mail programs.

Most administrators will appreciate Blum's attention to detail--it's rare for him to mention a process or procedure and not also present a listing or example as an illustration of what he's talking about. Sections on the messages that go back and forth during Post Office Protocol (POP) and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) sessions are informative, and listings of configuration files clarify what you have to do to get the functionality you want. Some administrators may find a few sections to be written at a level too basic for someone installing Postfix, but at the end of the day, most readers will agree that it's better to assume too little in a technical book than to assume too much. --David Wall

Topics covered: Installing and configuring Postfix, adjusting it to deal with peculiar local circumstances, and getting it to interact with other pieces of Unix software without sacrificing reliability or security. Particularly interesting sections have to do with migrating from Sendmail to Postfix, integrating OpenLDAP with Postfix, and tying Postfix to databases.

From the Back Cover

This book will offer broad coverage to instruct both the large ISP and the small business network administrator on how to install and configure a full featured Internet email system with a minimum amount of expense. This is possible using the Linux Operating System which supplies all of the necessary server software, the Postfix email software package, and Public Domain client email software on the client PC's. This book also includes educational information that can be used by network administrators in using Postfix to connect an office email server to an ISP. The Postfix email software package is in widely used on the Internet without any books documenting how to install, configure, and operate the email server. This book will provide all the information needed to run Postfix effectively and efficiently.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Sams; 1 edition (May 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672321149
• ISBN-13: 978-0672321146
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,052,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not for real mail admins, April 4, 2003

By 

Andrés Griñó Brandt (Santiago, RM Chile) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Postfix (Paperback)

This book is too basic. It's real audience is people with little or no previous experience with mail servers.

I have long experience with Postfix and expected two things from this book:

a) Show me a holistic vision of Postfix to better understand how it works. Postfix docs are to terse and hard to integrate and interpretate. For example, while there is only one (main.cf) configuration file (with no subsections), there is no single doc that show all posible parameters and theirs meanings. Instead, each Postfix's component have their own documentation with their own parameter set explained. Postfix need very badly a table showing which parameters goes with which component, and this book doesn't provide one (and I expected one). The Postfix organization and operation is VERY logic after the fact, but it will be a lot easier if someone show you (and save you from making the same mistakes).

b) Explain how to do some real world tasks (for example, how to place differents recipient restrictions for inbound mail and for outbound mail).

This book adds nothing to Postfix's own docs; it's only a gentle introduction to the subject.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A disappointment, May 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Postfix (Paperback)

5 chapters and 124pages of introduction to DNS, SMTP, and assorted blah. The author does an ok job of walking through the Postfix internals - 30+ pages just on postfix lookup tables. The book really disappointed in describing Postfix server operations. In fact, there appear to be a few errors. Following the book verbatim led to a BROKEN postfix server. Fortunately, Google knows all.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars don't wast your time or money, November 8, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Postfix (Paperback)

After reading the reviews I thought I'd give this book a try. I had an immediate need to set up a postfix email server with virtual hosts that would check their email via POP3. I've learned nothing from this book that I couldn't have gotten from the online documentation and it is an insult to any Linux administrator. I'm still at the same point I was before getting this book. Same issues, no insights into how to fix it. It doesn't even cover setting up POP3 access for virtual hosts.

If you think this book will give you an easier read than the online documentaion, don't bother. I had the online documentation open and it follows it so closely that it seems the author was simply paraphrasing the documentation. The only areas that it goes into more detail are irrelevent issues, like setting up ISDN (isn't that out of the scope of this book?) and how to run strace!

Again, don't bother. I want my money back!