[tarballed]

Taking elmore's advice on using ports when you can, i've decided to re-do my OpenBSD box acting as our mail gateway...

There are a number of reasons why im doing this, but lets just say, I want to make it better and learn in the process.

As far as ports are concerned, my question is this. I'd like to use ports for a brief time and then remove them when im done...Is this a feasible thing to do? Or once you put ports on, just leave it...

One thing though about ports and postfix...As long as the ports contains a fairly recent version of postfix, i'm all for it. But if it holds an older version, I will use source as there are some problems with some older versions of postfix...

Just thought i'd ask and get some feedback about using ports on production servers.

Tarballed

[elmore]

Well you can remove the ports tree if you want though I wouldn't.. I also wouldn't install the ports tree on your production box as that means installing a compiler and other such functions on what I assume will be a publically accessable computer. (public on the internet)

I'd setup another computer and compile packages there and then copy over the compiled package or just pkg_add off the ftp site where appropriate.

[tarballed]

I'd setup another computer and compile packages there and then copy over the compiled package or just pkg_add off the ftp site where appropriate.

Looks like im getting an OpenBSD workstation quicker than I anticipated...

Should be a blast. :)

I'll keep everyone updated...

Tarballed

[bmw]

One thing though about ports and postfix...As long as the ports contains a fairly recent version of postfix, i'm all for it. But if it holds an older version, I will use source as there are some problems with some older versions of postfix...

New code and production server are generally incompatible concepts.

You are much better off going with the port of the latest official Postfix release and living with (or working around) any known issues it may have. There are very few (close to zero) Postfix issues for the general admin that require actual source patches. Often all you need to do is ensure that some offending config is avoided or add a filter or something.

But make sure that the OpenBSD port maintainers are staying on top of security patches or whatever to the released version. If they are sluggish, then you would be better off building off your own sources. (I'm not saying they are sluggish--I simply don't know.)

The FreeBSD boys are right on it, so I'm happy with that port.

[tarballed]

In regards to pulling down a specific postfix port..in browsing the porst collection available, I noticed that there is quite a few different available versions of postfix:

postfix 2.0.5
postfix 2.0.9
postfix with pcre
postfix with tls and sasl
etc...

With that in mind, if I wanted to just pull down the latest stable port (which im guessing is going to be postfix-2.0.9) how and what is the best way to go about doing that?

Im reading up on the ports and packages page on the openbsd page, but I dont see anything about how to pull down just one port...

Im also taking elmore's advice and not putting ports on my mail gateway, but a second box I setup on our network...The idea being that I can pull down the package and then just move it over to the mail gateway...that correct?

Or is there a more streamlined approach that is recommended?

Thanks.

[tarballed]

Anyone wanna take a stab at that?

Or, should I just use the url to the package I like, and use pkg_add ?

For instance, I just want to use the 2.0.9 pacakge for postfix...

just pkg_add <url/postfix-2.0.9.tar.gz>

Something like that? or is there a better way?

[Vile]

That should work just fine. The pkg_add command supports pointing to ftp and http servers as well as local files.

I setup my local web server with all the files I use for my OpenBSD servers like the install sets, packages I like to install (I have a weakness for pico), src and srcsys tarballs, ports, etc.