Hi all

A company I am doing some work for wishes to host their own website and e-mail facilities from their own servers (very bad service in the past forces this decision). Playing around with servers is not exactly my strong point, I think I know how to set up the website but am pretty much in the dark as to how to set up the e-mailing service.

Does anyone know of any online tutorials that could lead me through the process? Several searches of my own just lead to sites offering to host. Or alternatively does anyone know of a good book (available in the UK) that would help?

Cheers

This depends on what OS you are using and the level of traffic that email will generate on your network (gorra keep that in mind).

Several mail servers (postfix, qmail etc) are available but as far as I know these are Unix type software though ports for other OS's may be found.

If you have access to Qmail then I would start with that one.

Ibbo

Aaaaack! Stay away from qmail!!! j/k

Well, maybe just a little bit.

Seriously, we use qmail at work for our customer email (exchange for internal company email), and it is a royal pain in the arse!

If the company is willing to shell out some cash, I would go with Exchange and IIS for web and mail. It's easier to setup and manage.

If they don't want to spend money, then you can go with linux/apache and postfix/sendmail/qmail. Of course, you will need to know and be fairly comfortable with linux to set this up. Especially when securing this server.

Of course, if the work you're doing for this company doesn't entail setting up the server, I would highly recommend letting someone else do it. If they don't have someone on staff, tell them hire someone to do it. It involves a lot of headaches...especially if the server draws the attention of a network sniffing hacker who decides to root the machine...taking down the company for 3 days (and maybe customers as well)...been there, done that...it sucks.

Nice if you have the cash, but Qmail is the most simple to get running and compared with sendmail or postfix it is lightweight (and especially sendmail more secure).

Up to the administrator at the end of the day though.

Me I wouldnt fork jack out for anything if I can get my hands on a free solution. I advise others to do likewise since the open source community is well supported and free yes FREE.

EAT that bill coz i dont want your stuff.

As for administering it, well your right it does cause many a headache and when harry comes knocking on your door, well thats another story.

Been there too

Ibbo