Re: email questions

From: Fielder George Dowding <fgdowding@iceworm-enterprises.net>
Date: Fri Jul 01 2005 - 11:30:48 AKDT

Hi Bob,

I have been running my own local email/IMAP server here at home for over
a year. I wanted the "coolness" effect of being able to check my email
from what ever box (two workstations and a laptop under normal
conditions plus the odd box setup for experimentation with new or
different o/s or preparing a box for give-away) with having all my email
available.

A year or so prior to setting up my local IMAP server, I had been
experimenting with using the mandatory MTA on any *nix box as my SMTP. I
already had been using a caching DNS on each box, so getting the local
SMTP to connect out there was relatively easy. I didn't experience the
port blocking problems that have been reported. I did this on both GCI
dial-up and ACS DSL. I suspect not using a local caching DNS was the
problem.

I started using fetchmail to pop my email accounts out there to deliver
to postfix set up to use the Maildir style mail box and mutt to read and
reply or originate email. I then began using bincimap as the IMAP thingy
which on Debian was just an install with dselect. Getting the login was
a little tricky, and I don't remember what machinations I had to perform
to get it working. Now I use Thunderbird (and again, getting the log in
stuff correct was the most difficult part of the exercise) and I
installed and setup the default Debian Exim4 MTA. I plan to go back to
postfix on my new all-purpose server (Internet-DSL, router, firewall,
caching DNS, dhcp server for the lan, and email gatherer and SMTP).

I am in the midst of setting up a similar email/IMAP system on the lan
at the Older Persons Action Group (OPAG). They have a number of hurdles
that I will have to clear in order to turn the system over to them. On
my own system, I can ssh into the box, su to root, fire up vim, and futz
with the setup to my heart's content. At OPAG, I will have to setup some
way of adding and deleting users as well as having a web browser
accessible help screen. So progress is slow as I can devote only a few
hours per week to the effort.

Cheerio! fgd.

bob@estimations wrote:
> I'm toying with the idea of setting up an email server for a small business
> (about 10 employees). Email is currently being provided by a remote
> webhost. The webhost has
>
> I have a number of questions I'm hoping I can get some feedback on.
>
> First of all, should I do it? What are the risks and/or rewards? I'm
> thinking that the primary risk is that I don't know what I'm doing, so may
> leave some security holes open in the installation, and that it might be a
> hassle to maintain. But I'm thinking that the primary reward is that I can
> more easily filter incoming mail, intercept spam at the server, etc.
>
> Secondly, if I *do* try it, what is a good package? I've been looking at
> qmail, and even found a couple of installation howto's that look like
> something I could do. e.g.
>
> http://www.flounder.net/qmail/qmail-howto.html
> http://www.qmailrocks.org/
>
> Does anyone have experience with qmail and/or others that they may like
> better? Also, any recommendations on spam killer applications?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Bob Crosby
>
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-- 
Fielder George Dowding, Chief Iceworm        .^.   Debian/GNU Linux
dba Iceworm Enterprises, Anchorage, Alaska   /v\   "Sarge" Stable
Since 1976 - Over 25 Years of Service.      /( )\  User Number 269482
                                             ^^-^^  "Seth" 186667
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Received on Fri Jul 1 11:26:01 2005

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