The value of doing a review of a book of this sort is that the reviewer gets a better understanding of an activity that is often taken for granted by most users of email. Although the book is really targeted at systems administrators whose main function is to set up and maintain a Qmail system, anyone can learn a variety of functions from it. Not only is the installing, setting up, and running of an email server explained in a succinct and understandable manner, but Wheeler also spends time expounding on how emails get into the queue, how emails get out of the queue, and the various functions associated with storing and retrieving email.

In this day and age, when the proliferation of email messages that one does not want to receive--as in spam--seems to be insurmountable, a chapter on filtering is very appropriate and appreciated. Wheeler indicates that it is quite a challenge to stop spam from being sent, and to prevent it from being received, by your server. Filtering methods can be either lightweight, whereby viruses are merely blocked from the system, or heavyweight, whereby viruses are eradicated from the system.

Just as expected from any good book and any good computing practice, Wheeler takes a look, in the last chapter, at the analysis of system log files, to identify problems and find bottlenecks in order to correct them.

This thin book is indeed a good guide for a system administrator and a very informative and educational read for the email user who is interested in understanding more than how mail is sent to and from a server.