On 9/14/11 4:51 AM, Allen wrote: > To be honest Ted I'm not comfortable with Linux full stop. I don't get the > time to learn basically, so what would be best is the simplest version to > get to work. > What I'm after is setting up a mail server to get rid of MS exchange. I want > to be able to use multiple domains much as I can with IIS for web sites. > Also a mailing list server like mailman. I did have the latter set up before > but that was a while ago. And also maybe for mono for cross-platform stuff.
You are talking about a server as opposed to a desktop system. Your definition of "simple" could be different than mine, but I like building my Linux servers without any GUI. Boot it up, log in to the terminal, and use command line tools to administer it. I consider this simpler because things tend to work perfectly without fuss when using the CLI, whereas when you add the GUI there are many more things to potentially go wrong. It'll be some work (I'd say on the order of 30 days since you are new to it) getting your mail server, apache, and mailman software up and running smoothly (you'll also want to configure your DNS server, and probably put some change management on the config files), but once configured you can expect a rock-solid setup requiring only minimal maintenance for on the order of 5 years. I use Ubuntu LTS server, with: + postfix for mail transport + dovecot for IMAP/POP mail storage + postfix/mysql to set up my mail users in a database + subversion for configuration file change tracking + bind9 for DNS server for hosting multiple domains + apache2 for web serving multiple sites/domains/apps + mailman for hosting several mailing lists + shorewall as a front-end to iptables (Linux kernel firewall) + openvpn when I need to get a secure tunnel to that network for non-ssh communication. I could probably configure such a server from scratch today in around 10 hours, not including the time to download and run apt-get installs, etc., and including research time to make sure I'm still doing it right, learning new features, etc. Once I get my servers configured minimally, I make them headless and do the rest of the configuration remotely using SSH. There really is no comparing a well-configured Linux server with a well-configured Windows server. They are completely different beasts. Linux requires more tweaking - hence more understanding - from the sysadmin, especially at the beginning. But properly configured everything works smoothly and securely for a very long time, and when something manages to take the server offline (such as a power outage or hard drive failure) everyone realizes how reliable it really is. In contrast, nobody is surprised when the Windows server needs to be rebooted. Then again, if you are hooked on all the bells and whistles of Exchange, IIS, etc., you will probably have a really hard time switching to a system that tends to provide only the necessary things in a relatively spartan way. Paul _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
