Dwarf Mail Server 1.1.1 review

Dwarf Mail Server is a full-featured mail server developed on the Java platform, implementing SMTP, POP3 and IMAP4rev1 protocols.

License: Freely Distributable File size: 916K Developer: Gnome Ltd.

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Dwarf Mail Server is a full-featured mail server developed on the Java platform, implementing SMTP, POP3 and IMAP4rev1 protocols.

Dwarf Mail Server provides support for rich application message processing via pluggable mail filters and agents, as well as full handling of virtual domains for the SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 protocols, and is free of charge for the binary redistribution.

Since the server is based on the Dwarf framework, it also shares its common design principles and features - simplicity, high modularity and extensibility, authentication and authorization, XML-based configuration, logging and remote management.

Here are some key features of "Dwarf Mail Server":
ESMTP, POP3 and IMAP4rev1 implementation
application logic layer provided by mail filters and agents
virtual mail hosts in SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 server
application-independent authentication and authorization
sample JSP-based webmail interface

Dwarf Mail Server is targeted for both end users who are just looking for simple, secure and robust mail server as well as developers who need an extensible and powerful framework for application message processing.

For users with minimal requirements it can offer portability, simple configuration as well as strong security.

Portability: several OS platforms are supported via the Java technology, including MS Windows, UNIX/Linux/BSD, MacOS X and others.
Configuration: just 3 lines have to be changed to fire up a sample mail server and a few of them to run a full featured SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 server.
Security: it uses Java Platform Security Architecture in combination with Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS), as well as SSL/TLS for the secure communication.

Advanced or enterprise users can additionally appreciate performance scalability, multiple domain handling, enhanced security features and modular design easing to incorporate it to the existing infrastructure.

Scalability: gaining from multithreaded design and dynamically adjustable allocation of resources.
Multiple domains: server is able to handle multiple virtual domains in a single instance for all SMTP, POP and IMAP protocols.
Enhanced security: includes subject-based permissions and access control lists for IMAP, SMTP relaying control rules, host-based filtering, SSL/TLS communication, basic anti-spam filtering, etc.
Robustness: client/server network communication is by design separated from the resource-expensive application logic layer. The server implementation is based on the unparsed byte streams whenever possible, including its own and highly efficient MIME parser.

Dwarf Mail Server also appears to be a suitable platform for application development and customization. Its modular structure and lightweight API allows enhancing existing functionality or completely exchanging the certain part as a whole:

Message processing: mail filters and agents provide an unique infrastructure for rich message processing.
Mail queue: physical mail queue representation is abstracted by the API specification and may replaced by a custom implementation.
Storage subsystem: physical data representation (i.e. messages, folders, configuration options, ACLs) is abstracted by API and may be replaced by a custom implementation based on filesystem, SQL database, etc.
MIME parser: the parsing engine may be reimplemented for the top efficiency according to the currently used mail storage.

Dwarf Mail Sever has been tested with the most popular mail clients like MS Outlook, Mozilla, Thunderbird, Opera, Apple Mail, Becky!, Pegasus, Eudora, Pine, The Bat! and others.

Other features:

multi-threaded server
dynamically adjusted number of active threads
server API for mail, user data and ACL storages
robust SMTP server architecture with flexible queue design
simultaneous deliveries to remote SMTP hosts
transparent Delivery System Notification (DSN) mechanism
support for shared mail folders
fast and universal stream-oriented MIME parser
runtime server configuration
built-in SSL/TLS support
full documentation with user guides and tutorials
samples with source code