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Server Applications

MailServe

Company Page Home Page Release Notes Screen Shots License:
Commercial; $15

Current Version: 2.1.7 (July 17, 2007) / 3.0.4 (February 4, 2008) / 4.1.4 (March 8, 2010)

MailServe is a graphical application that helps you set up the built-in Postfix mail server on Mac OS X. It sets up SMTP, UW/IMAP, POP3 and Fetchmail services, including support for SSL and SMTP authentication.

By using MailServe in conjunction with its Fetchmail capability, you can funnel all of your email from remote mail servers to your own local server, and check email using POP or IMAP from that server instead.

Version 3.0.4 - the latest version for Mac OS X 10.5 - adds the following:

  • Figured out how to get the Mail Queue feature working again in MailServe for Leopard. You can find the button that displays the Mail Queue panel when you Customize the Toolbar.

Version 4.1.4 - the latest version for Mac OS X 10.6 - adds the following:

  • MailServe Snow now creates SSL test certs and cert requests at 2048 bits.
  • Also, MailServe Snow uses Procmail to integrate Postfix, Dovecot and SpamBayes to implement spam filtering.
  • With version 4.1.4, there is a now a new feature for setting up custom Procmail directives that will be processed before or after the default procmailrc set up for spam filtering. The default procmailrc can also be edited and there's a button to revert the directives back to their default state if, for some reason, the custom edits don't work.

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Also See . . .

Can't find what you're looking for? Try a search:

Also, if you have an older Mac, be sure to check out the "Classic" applications page for more options.

Finally, take a look at ALEMIA if you think you know that name of an application, but aren't quite sure.

Built Into Mac OS X

Mac OS X has a huge amount of TCP/IP-based server software built into it that I don't specifically cover here. Your "Sharing" Preference Pane allows you to enable and disable these services with a click of the mouse. The software running behind the scenes to provide many of these services is generally of the open source variety. The standard release of Mac OS X includes, among many others:

  • Apache httpd (web server; enabled via the Sharing Preference Pane).
  • Postfix (mail server; see Mac OS X Hints for more information).
  • tnftpd (FTP server; enabled via the Sharing Preference Pane).
  • OpenSSH (Secure Shell server; enabled via the Sharing Preference Pane via "Remote Login" but additionally configurable via selected applications listed on this page).
  • BIND (Domain Name System server; see Mac OS X Hints for more information).
  • Samba (Windows file sharing; enabled via the Sharing Preference Pane).
  • XFree86 (X Window server; enabled via the "X11" application in your "Utilities" folder, if you elected to install it with Mac OS X).

Of course, Mac OS X Server includes many more, in addition to offering more recent versions of many of the above servers.

Related Links

Graham Orndorff has written a superb collection of articles on setting up email servers and secure email clients on Mac OS X.

Also Consider . . .

These are applications that are newer and of potential interest, but which I haven't yet selected for permanent inclusion. Have a look, and let me know if you think they deserve to be part of the permanent collection!