Re: How difficult is it to run your own email server?

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Author: Eric \"Shubes\"
Date:  
To: Main PLUG discussion list
Subject: Re: How difficult is it to run your own email server?
I have mixed emotions regarding qmailtoaster. I was heavily involved with it
a year ago, but have been too busy with other things more recently to stay
up to date with it.

QMT is a nice appliance-type package/distro. It's very easy to build and get
a standalone server up and running, and community support is outstanding.

It's also very efficient. I continue to run it on a PII/266 w/ 256M.

On the downside, it's not available on many distros, and even on CentOS (the
preferred distro to use) it does many things in an unconventional (djb)
fashion. It really does work reliably though, so you shouldn't need to spend
much effort learning its quirks, or even learning CentOS in detail.

BL, if you decide to try QMT, I'd recommend only doing it with a standalone
machine. Since it doesn't require much of a machine, that's not typically a
big deal.

Mark Phillips wrote:
> Qmailtoaster looks great. Too bad it is an rpm and not Debian
> compatible.
>
> I didn't find any discussion if alien worked in this particular
> situation or not. I did find this write-up
> http://www.shupp.org/toaster/?page=preface#whatisatoaster which covered
> installing most of the bits of qmail toaster on a Debian box. Not sure
> how current it is.
>
> How different is CentOS from Debian? I have only ever used Debian, so I
> am a little concerned about adding yet one more unknown to the puzzle.
>
> Thanks for the lead!!
>
> Mark
>
> On Fri, 2007-10-05 at 09:35 -0700, Jorge Delacruz wrote:
>> Please check out qmailtoaster. It even comes in an ISO that has the
>> whole server side well integrated. It provides MTA, MDA, anti-spam,
>> anti-virus, imap, pop, webmail, muti-domain support, certificates, and
>> a web-based point & click interface so you don't have to learn too
>> much. I've set up a few of these (not the ISO, but sitting on CentOS
>> 4), and it works very well - takes hardly any (about an hour per
>> month, maybe) of my time.
>>
>> JD
>>
>>
>> Mark Phillips <> wrote:
>>         I am thinking about setting up my own mail server (IMAP) so I
>>         can sync
>>         email, contacts, calendars with my blackberry. I have been
>>         researching
>>         email servers on Debian, and have a few questions. 

>>
>>         I need email for 5 users, 2-3 have Blackberries, and there are
>>         2 domains
>>         involved. On the desktop, they all use Evolution.

>>
>>         1. How difficult is it to maintain am email server? 
>>         A couple of articles/forums recommend using a third party for
>>         email
>>         since keeping an email server secure is hard and a takes lots
>>         of time.
>>         Keeping on top of all the types of attacks and exploits people
>>         come up
>>         with, and then install patches to prevent them from taking
>>         over your
>>         server and using it for nefarious activities is a full time
>>         job. Is this
>>         true?

>>
>>         2. What combinations of MTA, MDA, MUA's do people use?
>>         I have run across several articles that combine Postfix,
>>         Courier or
>>         Dovecot, and SquirrelMail or Qmail, MySQL, ClamAV, and
>>         SpamAssassin.
>>         Which is better (i.e. easier to install & maintain) Courier or
>>         Dovecot?
>>         What other combinations are better? How much time does it take
>>         to keep
>>         all these pieces secure?

>>
>>         3. How much hardware do I need?
>>         I plan on using the funambol server for syncing the
>>         blackberry, and that
>>         requires a P4, 1.8 GHz, 200 MB disk space, and 512 MB of RAM.
>>         How much
>>         more do I need for email? Could my email server fit on the
>>         same machine
>>         or a separate machine? The funambol server is a J2EE
>>         application (tomcat
>>         & mysql) (http://www.funambol.com/).

>>
>>         Thanks!

>>
>>         Mark
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>>
>>



--
-Eric 'shubes'
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