Answer for: What are the most important features in an email service?
#2 Ability to use the email client of
your choice
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#2 Ability to use the email client of
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Yeah, that would be good as Plesky Plesk doesn't play ball as far as that's concerned.
The plesk servers all have IMAP/POP3. You can also always install any web based mail software you like, like squirrelmail (I don't know of any others besides Squirrelmail and Horde off the top of my head)...
As for the shared system, we also offer IMAP/POP3 access (with SSL or TLS too if you like) and that allows you to use any mail client software you want. With the shared cluster webmail we (currently) don't offer anything other than squirrelmail.
Shame on me, I only considered the non-browser based clients http://en.wikipedia.or...il_clients.
Since my post atmail has become available on Plesk.
Is it common for email providers to mandate that customers use specified POP/IMAP email clients? The ability to use the email client of your choice (excluding webmail clients) just seems like a given to me. Can someone help me out?
Hushmail recommend Mac Mail, coupled with the GPGMail plugin as the best option on the Mac.
I found Entourage and IMAP wouldn't work with Hushmail unless client side SMTP AUTH was disabled. On my VPS I have exactly the same problem with POP.
Other than these two instances I've never had any other problem with AUTH being enabled.
On my server I have POP-BEFORE-SMTP set and SMTP-AUTH set to time out. For those who are not familiar with this, it restricts the relaying of mail to whatever IP your using. For the relay to learn your IP you must first poll the POP box. This opens the relay to you IP only, then it lock after a certain time.
Mac Mail doesn't have any problem whatsoever, and Hush are right to recommend the above combination, but I choose not to use Mac Mail because backing the thing up and restoring it is a PITA. The the UI could do with some improvements too.
If Apple would build backup and restore into Mac Mail and make it a doddle to migrate accounts between machines then I may surrender Entourage; a backup and restore there is just a matter of zipping a folder, albeit a very large folder. Oh yeah, Mac Mail would also need to be able to import a couple of Gb of Entourage mail.
Admittedly these are pretty weak examples, because it's not really a mandate from Hush and AUTH isn't needed to send mail. I set my mail up by hand as Plesky couldn't get it right.
I must get around to switching to postfix.
You can use IMAP, instead of POP, then you can leave your mail on the server and back it up there if you like (this a matter of choice/preference, i personally use IMAP). Also if you use IMAP there's no 'migrating between computers' except for profile information because all the mail is actually stored on your server with IMAP. This has the advantage that you can switch between mail clients without a hitch too. You can use webmail one day, eudora the next, and Mail.App on a different day. The only way I know to migrate/sync profile information on a mac easily is with MobileMe (which you have to pay $100/yr for). I'm betting though someone out there knows which files in ~/Library/Preferences that you need to keep in sync, or has written an app to do it.
SMTP AUTH does work fine with Plesk based servers, even Pre 9.0 with qmail, depending on your sever settings your auth name might be username@domain. By turning on SMTP AUTH and POP BEFORE SMTP you give yourself the option of using either/or.
As for not being able to get a particular client to work you're experiencing two very seperate problems. Sending mail and receiving mail. Receiving mail is over IMAP or POP -- with IMAP mail stays on the server, with POP you have to download it to your client. Most of the time this isn't a problem because ISPs don't block either of these services. Some AV software will however. When sending mail you might run into any number of problems, including the fact that many ISPs now block the SMTP port (port 25) by default, forcing you to use SSMTP (which isn't turned on a lot of times in Plesk!) on port 465, or the SMTP submission port 587. Plesk allows you to enable submission by clicking on the Enable message submission checkbox just above the POP/SMTP auth checkboxes. Once turned on you can connect and using authenticated SMTP relay mail from that alternate port (either 465 or 587) in cases where your ISP blocks port 25. Unlike 25 and 465, 587 is NEVER used by mail servers and ONLY used by clients, so it always has authentication turned on. This means that ISPs very rarely block it even if they block the other two.
So why does mac mail work? Well, mac mail will often poke at all three ports and use whichever works for a given situation. This is why Mail.App will work when others won't -- rather than making the user figure it out, it does it for you basically. If SSL is checked it'll generally first try 587 (using STARTTLS, then SSL), then port 465 (SSL mode only) and then port 25 using STARTTLS. If ALL of that fails then it'll tell the user. If SSL is not checked, then it'll try to not use SSL/STARTTLS on 587, then 25, then finally it'll go for 465 and turn on SSL anyway (though that might not be quite right for the non SSL mode, I don't use it like that).
I hope that clears things up a bit. Basically if a provider allows SMTP and IMAP or POP, OR if you've almost ANY relaying SMTP server, you can send and receive mail. Nine out of ten times it's configuration issues that cause mail to not work. There really is no way for a provider to block a standards compliant mail application, because they never declare to the servers "Hey I'm Eudora!" or "Hey I'm Mail.App!".
While Plesk may not have native plugins for a lot of web based mail apps, you can I think get one or two others in the Plesk applications vault package, as well as there is nothing at all that prevents you from installing the web mail client of your choice inside of one of your domains. And there are quite a few choices. Roundcube, Squirrellmail atmail, imp/horde, nocc, and more. Almost all of which you can install if you so choose.
Seperately, about postfix.
Let us know how that goes with Plesk. We use postfix on all of our big shared mail cluster for a LOT of reasons (#1 is performance, #2 is security, #3 is it's honestly easier to configure, there are more) - and would love to start pushing it out to all the managed servers but we've not toyed with the Plesk switchover from qmail to postfix much yet, and, our experience is they release things without any testing basically.
qmail gets bogged down really easily under large mail loads. There's tuning you can do to increase the number of connections it runs, but it's just not very bright. It's not kept very up to date, even basic things that are a necessary part of every mail server require seperate apps or patching in order to work in qmail. It's a real mess.
I'd like to commend you on your excellent post.
I didn't know Mail.app had a mind of it's own. Useful as that is, I think that sort of smart behavior needs an override as overriding it could be useful on occasions. As per your speculation, there is indeed a means to backup and restore Mail.app, "Back IT" shareware from http://theapplegeek.com selectively backs up a range of stuff as a handy self restoring app.
As for my VPS, I think I've already configured Qmail in the way you describe, but it's not without possibility that I've overlooked some part of it since I done it by hand, which was necessary as Plesk was refusing at the time. Therefore, I would like to volunteer to be a postfix guinea pig if you'd like to push it out to my VPS for me. That way you can use your experience and expertise to devise a suitable set of switch over instructions for others. In return I'll work with you to iron out any issues that might crop up across a range of configuration combinations.
Under Qmail, my Mail.app using POP complains about is invalid certificates and nothing else. A self cert. is needed as adding it to the keychain doesn't work. My older Entourage doesn't do this, but instead intermittently returns data decryption errors, but only when polling all boxes at once, never when polling a single box. I only ever use secure connections. I use pop because I need off-line access and also don't like confidential email hanging around on any server longer than necessary. My alternate email is hosted with MobileMe, and it's time I weaned myself off it to a degree and postfix might get that ball rolling.