E-mail is a non-trivial system and diagrams are very helpful. I will
try with just text.
I have never installed Sendmail, just hacked a running system to
keep it running. Sendmail or Qmail or Postfix won't much difference
to Mutt unless you are doing something very unusual. Postfix is being
developed: bugfixes, minor improvements, etc. IIRC, Qmail is not
actively being developed any longer. I have a mild preference for
Postfix over Qmail. I strongly prefer both to Sendmail.
There are books available for all three: Sendmail has O'Reilly book,
Qmail and Postfix have books by Richard Blum. The Postfix book is
okay for initial setup, disappointingly little advanced content.
Qmail and Postfix both have good e-mail lists. Don't know about
Sendmail.
Fetchmail pulls e-mail from POP and IMAP servers and either hands it
to the SMTP server (all three include this) or hands it to a Mail
Delivery Agent (MDA) like Procmail. MDAs allow sorting mail into
different inboxes, filtering out spam, etc.
HTH,
Jeffrey
Quoting Brian Durant
Hi again,
I am concerned about the security of Sendmail, in comparison to Postfix or Qmail, but don't have much insight on the issues involved. Likewise, as I am a newbie to Linux, I am hoping to reduce the learning curve in my attempts to get Mutt to work the way I want it to. Would I be better off with Postfix or Qmail? What are the pros and cons? Where do Fetchmail and Procmail fit into the scheme of things?