Life with Mail::Toaster

[davidcl]

An attempt at an overview of the toaster, a la Life With Qmail.

Please contribute any comments on how you manage your toaster.

What does a new toaster owner need to know?  What did it take you a while to figure out?  

Please post in free form; I'll compile the comments into as cohesive a document as possible.

[davidcl]

What is the Mail::Toaster?

The mail toaster is a collection of open-source software which provides a full-featured mail server running on FreeBSD.  The system is built around the qmail mail transport agent, with many additions and modifications.  Matt Simerson is the primary author and maintainer of the toaster.  There is an active and friendly community of toaster owners which supports the toaster on a mailing list and web forum.

The toaster is built around qmail, a robust mail transfer agent by Daniel J. Bernstein, and vpopmail, a virtual domain manager for qmail by Inter7 systems.  Matt keeps up with releases of the core software, evaluates them, decides when they are stable, and then integrates them into the toaster.  Matt has also added several patches which add functionality to these core programs.

Why use the Mail::Toaster?

Because it provides a lot of useful email functionality in a well-tested, well-integrated package.  There is no easier way to turn a computer into a secure, full-featured, high-performance mail server.