Legacy versions of PowerMTA utilized a single, monolithic config.dat file. While functional, this created challenges in automated deployment environments (DevOps/CI/CD).
PowerMTA 6.0r3 adopts a directory-based configuration approach. Instead of a single file, the configuration is split across multiple files within a directory (typically /etc/pmta/config/). This allows administrators to:
The most distinct change in PowerMTA 6.0r3 is the restructuring of the configuration management system. powermta 60r3
PowerMTA 6.0r3 utilizes a multi-process architecture rather than a single-threaded monolith. It introduces the concept of Pipes.
Administrators can define specific "Pipes" for specific types of traffic (e.g., a dedicated pipe for transactional mail and another for bulk marketing mail). This prevents a backlog in one queue from choking the resources of another, ensuring critical transactional messages are delivered even during high-volume bulk blasts. Legacy versions of PowerMTA utilized a single, monolithic
Prior to v6, throttling was primarily IP-based. 60r3 introduced granular domain-level throttling. You can now limit sending to yahoo.com to 500 messages/second while allowing internalcorp.com to run at 10,000/sec.
Example snippet from config file:
<domain yahoo.com>
max-smtp-out 500
max-msg-rate 100
</domain>
PowerMTA monitors directories for new .msg files. Ensure permissions are locked:
chown pmta:pmta /var/spool/pmta/pickup
chmod 750 /var/spool/pmta/pickup
smtp-port 25 http-mgmt-port 8080 host-name mail.yourdomain.com Hardware Considerations:
/usr/sbin/pmta configtest