I have some ideas about the next email services. So I would like to build a world-class email server.
(The kind of mail server that could compete with Gmail and Hotmail in a near futur - say, two years.)
How should I start ? I mean, what language and what kind of repository ? Ruby, Java ? Oracle, MySQL ?
Any open source suggestion (I already know JAMES) ?
Thank you.
Yave you looked at the source for the most widely used email server to get an idea of what to use and what their strengths and weaknesses are?
Some MTAs to look at are Postfix, QMail, Exim and Sendmail. Here is a good comparison of those: http://shearer.org/MTA_Comparison
I recently developed an email hosting solution, http://fijisoftware.com/ based on top of Postfix and must say it is a very robust server and can handle hundreds of thousands of users per server. I chose it because it's used by the largest open source email solution, http://www.zimbra.com/. I'd suggest studing the architecture of that server.
Usually mail servers are part MTA to handle SMTP and the other part that handles POP and IMAP are usually separate programs integrated, such as Courier, Dovecot etc. So you'd have to compare and study those as well.
Related
We currently have POP3 mail accounts where I am and try as I might to convince my manager that we should be using hosted IMAP or Exchange he won't budge because of the cost. The staff are mostly out of office so there is no domain server here, however, we do have a dedicated server and I wondered whether I could use this to collect the mail and distribute it from there in some way.
Effectively what I'm trying to do is ensure mail is stored somewhere other than the end users machine because backups are user dependant at the moment. With hosted Exchange or Exchange on this server would be simple but my manager won't shell out for it. I have seen free mail servers called MailEnable and Axigen but unsure if they will do the job. Sorry if this seems like an easy or stupid question but never needed to do this before.
I am assuming due to the reference to Exchange that you are on Windows.
If you have an old box lying around that works, you could install linux on it and then choose from a number of different imap servers. Dovecot and Courier are both good choices and I have worked with them before.
You could use fetchmail to then pick up the mailboxes and then deliver to the imap boxes or get them deliver directly.
Setting up such a linux server for email was one of the first things I ever did on Linux. While initially daunting, once you get the hang of it, it is pretty straightforward and there are plenty of resources out there to help.
Ubuntu is probably the easiest to get used to. CentOs is also a reasonable choice.
You shouldn't be running your own server if you aren't willing to administer your own server, and they are not easy to configure if you don't know what you are doing (e.g., you mess up and you are exploited for spamming).
Look into a service like mailgun. In my application we are using them for forwarding to REST endpoints as well as onto another SMTP server.
Competitors that wound up not meeting my needs but may meet yours include Dyn, email yak, Sendgrid, etc. etc.
Why not just setup the mail clients to store their mail files on a standard network drive or share? I follow that this situation is pretty silly in your view - 100% because of the ridiculous constraints that you are being asked to work within: I would similarly find the solution I am suggesting ridiculous generally; but under the circumstances, it seems like a simple answer to your problem - replacing distributed mail storage and backup with centralized storage and backup.
Don't POP3 email clients have the option keep a copy on the server? Mine certainly does. See second tick box on the pic.
You can then periodically take a back up of all the emails from the server to stop it getting clogged up.
I am creating a PHP system that will forward emails, (ie. someone#emailforprofession.com to someone#gmail.com) without using an SMTP server which is faster and more stable? PEAR::Mail or PHP: Mail? (or another one entirely)
I would be using extra headers and attachments but mainly trying to keep it looking and acting the same. (if anyone has an example for forwarding with attachments PLEASE provide it!)
And not exactly on the side but is there a way for people to be able to send email from they're someone#emailforprofession.com email address without having a complete inbox etc?
It would probably be better for me to use a real email provider but these are supposed to be free email addresses so paying by the email address is not an option, if anyone knows of a service that: charges by the month or year, has an API that email addresses can be created from and that can set up email forwards via the API that would be most appreciated.
I currently have a partial system together but would like to know which way I should go first.
Thank you all.
The PEAR class supports multiple mailer backends, which allows you to
switch whenever needed and you'll be able to perform some benchmarks
and see which backend suits you best. The native mail function on the
other hand is much less advanced and will show a clear difference in
performance, especially for that amount of mails.
I also suggest you have a look at PEAR's mail queue class:
http://pear.php.net/package/Mail_Queue
This is much more recommended for larger projects such as yours,
you'll also be able to implement a cron like feature which will send a
certain amount of mail per period you choose.
Here
Recently i decided to build this kind of web application. But i have got no experience for this.
So, to begin with,
Are those system using SMTP function and include those mail plugin such as PHPmailer??
Thanks
You have two options at your disposal.
Roll your own SMTP server + use a pre-built library relevant to your language/framework (PHPmailer)
Purchase the services of an email service provider
If you want to go with the second, you are giving up direct control so that you won't have to maintain an SMTP server, the emails will get into inboxes without question, and you'll get detailed statistics about what you are sending and what people are doing with it.
With the second option, you have two types: transactional and bulk.
Transactional Mail Providers:
PostageApp
Sendgrid
PostmarkApp
Bulk Mail Providers:
MailChimp
AWeber
Exact Target
Constant Contact
Take a look at your service and determine what sort of mail you will be sending (most likely bulk) and pick your provider based on the features you will be needing.
The correct answer is "propably", since you can't know about all systems. The easiest way to get answer is to look at similar OSS projects source code.
I'm looking to start using an SMTP or mail relay service. I've found quite a few out there, but I'm not sure if there are advantages to one vs another. The only requirements I have are:
can send "from" more than 1 domain (possibly >20 for all the different sites I work on)
can pay for a higher limit (I may need to send as many as 15000 in 1 day, although the average is <500)
can send from PHP (although I doubt this will be a problem as most are compatible with any language)
I'm okay with an SMTP service, mail relay service or a site that uses a custom API, although an API would make the conversion more difficult.
Reasons for wanting to do this:
I don't want to host any mail services my self as they just cause head aches
I don't have to worry about being blacklisted. If they are blacklisted they will know about it and have the knowledge to get it fixed.
Reporting on if emails have gone through would be nice.
I'm not sure why you would need this. If you read the proper RFCs (822, 2822, 823, 2823), you should be able to connect to any given site directly using SMTP. You need to be a little careful with Line Endings (should always be CRLF), and should probably add mail.add_x_header = OFF to your php.ini.
However, if you need a relay, I recommend using a spam filtering provider, as then you have protection from being blacklisted due to spammers abusing email-generating forms. I would recommend Red Condor for this task, but that is only because I work there, and know that we can handle it.
I've started using Mandrill and found it to be a great, reliable service provided by MailChimp that includes enough for most sites to use for free. Easy to setup, but also has a lot more functionality available.
I am writing a program that will be emailing reports out many (~100) clients which I want to test before I spam everyone.
I want to do a test run against my production data and actually send the messages to a SMTP server, but I don't want the SMTP server to actually deliver the messages. I want the server to act like a real SMTP server from the perspective of my application, but instead of delivering messages, I just want it to store the messages, and log what happened.
Is there a SMTP server specifically designed for testing purposes?
Does anyone know of a way to configure exim or postfix to behave like I have described above
What do you use to test a mass-email delivery?
In java you can use dumbster
Its easy to use and you can validate every aspect of the email you are intercepting.
It's a Java SMTP server implementation meant for unit testing. (Just make sure you redirect your email to the machine running dumbster...)
I just found another alternative that do almost the same: Greenmail
Greenmail also support POP3, IMAP with SSL so you can test your client against it.
For .NET I set the config file to deliver mail to a folder, then you can have the automated test inspect the directory and files.
<system.net>
<mailSettings>
<smtp deliveryMethod="SpecifiedPickupDirectory">
<specifiedPickupDirectory pickupDirectoryLocation="c:\pickupDirectory"/>
</smtp>
</mailSettings>
</system.net>
While searching for options I found the following that may be useful.
DevNullSmtp
Use a null SMTP server for testing
Fake SMTP Service
twisted examples/emailserver.tac
"The Wiser framework for unit testing mail"
I've heard of a few other developers moving from Dumbster to Wiser and have migrated my testing code as well. One of the Java components that I've worked on sends thousands of emails a day and I've written unit tests for the different email templates and scenarios using Dumbster and Wiser. I prefer Wiser.
Snips from the Wiser website (http://code.google.com/p/subethasmtp/wiki/Wiser):
Wiser is a smart replacement for Dumbster and is built on top of the SubEtha SMTP Java library which allows your Java application to receive SMTP mail with a simple, easy-to-understand API.
A good program for email testing is smtp4dev (Windows only).
It's a dummy SMTP server. Sits in the system tray and does not deliver the received messages. The received messages can be quickly viewed, saved and the source/structure inspected.
http://smtp4dev.codeplex.com/
http://skaraarslan.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-check-email-works-without-using.html
(this presumes you are using .net to send emails)
Given that you mention exim and postfix (which I'm taking to be some kind of unix stuff), this answer might not be as useful as it could be, but check out Neptune. It's a fake SMTP server designed for automated testing. If you've got a spare windows box floating around, you could put Neptune on that then configure your app to send "through" the Neptune server.
Exim can be configured to accept incoming mails but not deliver them. Look for the keywords queue_only and queue_only_file in the documentation.
I personally modify the e-mail addresses to test, I send them to a dummy account of mine, that way I can validate not only that they sent, but that they appear in the proper format.
At my office, we have a server that is set up to always send all incoming mail to one address, regardless of who it's actually addressed to. We just point all our testing environments at that server and watch the QA mailbox fill up. I don't know what server it is, but it's probably some open source thing someone found.
Sendmail has a Test Mode.
You just invoke sendmail with the -bt parameter. As an example:
/usr/lib/sendmail -bt -Ciu-testconfiguration.cf
Please be aware that in this method, Sendmail requires an special configuration on rewrite rules. You need to understand how Sendmail rewrites addresses in order to properly create a .cf file for Test Mode.
Edit: See this article: http://ussg.iu.edu/usail/mail/debugging/
After not beeing happy with the solutions I found, I ended up writing developmentSMTP, easy to use, 100% Java --> cross platform.
Supports writing emails to file, forwarding emails or simply printing them on stdout.
Post Hoc is a pure Java application that looks exactly like an SMTP server to the application you are testing, but it simply collects all the email messages and allows you to inspect them using a web interface.
Freely available at: Post Hoc GitHub Site
For more information: PostHoc: Testing Apps that Send Email
If you're looking to manually test that the email sends and that the email template has the right kind of html and css that you're expecting, then I would recommend maildev https://www.npmjs.com/package/maildev. You can install and run it as a node module and also as a docker container! I've found it extremely handy for basic sanity testing of emails.