E-mail Server

Johnniep

I am looking to set up a server to act as a email server. The server will be running Win2000. I am thinking of setting up a catch-all address and pulling them down to the server usisng a pop account and then distributing them out to individual accounts. One necessity is a webmail option to view email remotely.

Does anyone have any experience in setting this up and could recommend some good software.

Any help is really appreciated.

John.

aidan_walsh

Why not just deliver to the server using SMTP like everyone else?

What version of Windows 200 will you be using? How many people are you looking to accommodate with the mail server?

Johnniep

aidan_walsh wrote:

Why not just deliver to the server using SMTP like everyone else?
QUOTE]

Right......point taken

It will be running on a Win 2000 Pro machine that was lying around doing nothing!!

Its only for a small setup of 5-10 users.

aidan_walsh

Well, bear in mind that Windows 2000 Pro has a limit of 10 simultaneous inward connections. Being an OS-bound restriction, no srever software you install on it will be able to overcome this.

zod

mdaemon, zimbra on fc4 or sbs on a cheap dell (http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/servers_Q1_W4_pedge_sc440_SC034401?c=ie&cs=iebsdt1&l=en&s=bsd )

however if i were u I would throw the mx record at "gmail for your domain" and not look back

zAbbo

for a small office, you probably don't want the hassle of managing email in house, have you got a domain ?

Let the experts handle it, setup a domain/email service with a hosting company (Digiweb etc.), and then configure the email clients(Outlook / Thunderbird etc.) to pull down the email via pop3

Trust me, you don't need to deal with server configuration / updates / security if it's only a handful of email address's, and you'll have the webmail option as well.

rogue-entity

zabbo wrote:

for a small office, you probably don't want the hassle of managing email in house, have you got a domain ?

Let the experts handle it, setup a domain/email service with a hosting company (Digiweb etc.), and then configure the email clients(Outlook / Thunderbird etc.) to pull down the email via pop3

Trust me, you don't need to deal with server configuration / updates / security if it's only a handful of email address's, and you'll have the webmail option as well.

Agreed, though if you really want to try your hand at setting up your own Email server, with Webmail, I would suggest using a Linux based setup. Install the Debian GNU/Linux base system, then install the server software you need.

Capt'n Midnight

aidan_walsh wrote:

Well, bear in mind that Windows 2000 Pro has a limit of 10 simultaneous inward connections. Being an OS-bound restriction, no srever software you install on it will be able to overcome this.

Doesn't that only apply to microsoft file / print services ?, as there are oodles of apps out there, many commercial, that share other services on other ports. [minirant]veritas allow you to backup workstations for free but want their share of the "microsoft tax" if you want to backup a server -adding to the real cost of using servers [/minirant]

MDaemon is a great little mail server - not free but well worth the money, settings stored in text files, emails stored in a raw format so you know if the server goes belly up you can still get them back, and you can reinstall it and copy the settings over to another machine in half an hour, instead of waiting hours for exchange to check the databases (but exchange is better at workflow and all that bloat that has nothing to do with email)

http://www.altn.com

aidan_walsh

Doesn't that only apply to microsoft file / print services ?

Well, from the KB

All logical drive, logical printer, and transport level connections combined from a single computer are considered to be one session; therefore, these connections only count as one connection in the 10- connection limit.

Assuming they're talking about Layer 4 protocols when they talk about transport level connections, it does suggest that only 10 concurrent computers can connect to a single Windows 2000 Pro box at any time.

Johnniep

Thanks for all the advice all. Really appreciate it!!!!!

zod wrote:

however if i were u I would throw the mx record at "gmail for your domain" and not look back

Think I might just do this. Thanks.