So You Want To Host Your Own Linux Mail Server ... 28
Jeff writes "Recently, I moved my personal mail from a hosted Windows 2003 application to my own virtual Linux server. I now have nearly unlimited storage, full control over my e-mail and it's less than $10/month. Here's why I did it and here's how I did it. And I'm not a Linux geek."
thanx for the free advertising (Score:5, Interesting)
Bleh.
Re:thanx for the free advertising (Score:5, Informative)
Virtual Linux hosting is something new that uses UML (I think) to run several completely separate operating system partitions on the same machine. This means that rather than that horrid CPANEL thing you get with most virtual hosting accounts, you get a full Linux install that you can pretty much use however you want, installing new programs and running background processes and cron, using SSH, and so on. You can even have IP addresses assigned to your particular Linux if required.
This is much better than the standard HTTP/1.1 vhost package that most small-medium sized website hosts have been offering for the last few years.
Re:thanx for the free advertising (Score:2)
Anyone know of other Virtual Linux hosting sites besides Redwood Virtual?
-metric
Re:thanx for the free advertising (Score:5, Informative)
Re:thanx for the free advertising (Score:2, Informative)
Tecktonic.net [tektonic.net]and JVDS.com [jvds.com]. Ended up going with tektonic, and have been pretty happy with them. Support is top-notch and they use Virtuozzo instead UML.
Re:thanx for the free advertising (Score:1)
So simple! (Score:3, Funny)
Not a linux geek? (Score:5, Insightful)
For normal users the best solution is to either get a hosting account somewhere that supports webmail, or open a gmail account. They configure everything for you so all you have to do is login and read your mail.
Re:Not a linux geek? (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, what the hell's wrong with you?
All you have to do is download and burn a Debian
Piece of cake. I don't see what you're complaining about, but whatever. Go back to using the 1 of 5 free e-mail addresses that came with the ISP you have to have anyway, and use "Outlook" or "Mail.app" or "Evolution" or whatever easy-to-use program your OS comes with. Pshaw.
Re:Not a linux geek? (Score:2)
You mean mail(1) [freebsd.org]?
WOW. (Score:3, Insightful)
Holy shit!
This is sort of a blind-leading-the-blind situation, with little reference made to the official docs for any of these packages. And I'm sorry, I don't have time to read some fellow's long, hard journey to understanding Debian apt-get. Or better yet, screwing up the relationship between sudo and visudo and negelecting the latter entirely.
I also love how 2 gigs is seen as "unlimited" space. Sure, it's a lot more than you'll get from a free webmail account, even gmail, but that's the reason to roll your own server, not buy time on a virtual server and stumble around learning what you shouldn't do with linux.
Bleh. Don't waste you time.
Re:$10/month for a virtual linux hosts (Score:4, Informative)
"I used the instructions below to guide me through the process of setting up a server at Redwood Virtual [redwoodvirtual.com] with the following components..."
And a little bit further down:
"I bought a personal account at Redwood Virtual [redwoodvirtual.com]. It's $10 per month..."
Re:$10/month for a virtual linux hosts (Score:1)
mail servers need RBL + Spam assassin (Score:3)
Re:mail servers need RBL + Spam assassin (Score:4, Informative)
No, it really isn't. I've been hosting email for a handful of domains for a few years now. No relaying, no intrusions, no problems. Spam filtering is done with a few RBLs and relaying is prohibited.
Re:mail servers need RBL + Spam assassin (Score:2, Informative)
Postfix is really good at dealing with spam, you can compile it with PERL-Compatible Regular Expression support and set up your first strong protective layer right out of the box. In fact, my mail server is only using regular expressions to catch spam and worms and it has been quite effective over time. Evem if for some reason you don't like PCRE, you can always use POSIX regular expressions for filtering.
> Setting u
A virtual host sounds nice and all that . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Sudo over-usage (Score:1)
Re:Sudo over-usage (Score:2, Informative)
Domains.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a cousin who seemingly does this who forgot to renew his domain. So when e-mails start bouncing because my mother can't send mail to her relatives, who gets called in? Me. Although the errors clearly mention it's a problem on their end
To summarize: do it right (ie, have a backup plan), or not at all.
Bad form. (Score:3, Interesting)
So your forgetful cousin switches from SBC DSL to Roadrunner. He'll still miss his renewal reminders.
Case in point: There's a salesman where I work who used to use his personal DSL account to conduct business. That DSL pipe never really worked very well, but for the longest time it was all he could get. Sometime later, he switched to cable. But he's still paying Way Too Much for a DSL account that isn't connected to
Sounds expensive (Score:3, Informative)
You are in denial (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's see.
? Choose daemon since redwood virtual has a network connection
? Select the default URL
? Select yes to notify
? Select Internet Site when asked for configuration
? Select postmaster as the root account
? Select default mydomain.org
? Select defaults for mail routing etc...
Be sure to remember to add a user account for the postmaster later. I?ll come back to this shortly.
If you know enough to alias postmaster to root, set your default domain and set up mail routing you sir are too a linux geek.
LK
Er, actually no, thanks. (Score:2)
/. hits again (Score:1)
"We are currently at full capacity. We will have more virtual servers available soon. Please check back in a few days..."
It seems that