OT? Please help me help someone else...

[Simon Martin]

Dear List,

In a weak moment I promised a charity that I would look into how
difficult it would be for them to have their own web based email system.
I guess this shouldn't be too hard but as I'm not at all technical I'm
hoping you people can help me tell them what they need in terms of
software.

Their requirements are: In no particular order...

1) entirely web based access to mail with all the usual things like
spell check, address book, multiple folder manipulation, filters,
attachments etc. They also want to be able to forward mail to any other
address on demand.

2) subdomains of their domain created on the fly. ie,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] created by the user without the
need for an administrator.

3) a really fast, stable and secure system capable of scaling to
millions of mailboxes (pretty unlikely...) and tens of millions of
messages per day.

4) Cheap! I told them that it could most likely be done entirely with
open source software.

What would your suggestions be in terms of software?

Would qmail be a good base for this system?
Which front end do you suggest?

My thinking was along the lines of: (don't laugh, I know nothing about
this!...) Linux, qmail, mySql, apache webserver, php4, Squirrelmail
front end. Does this make sense? Any other suggestions?

Please feel free to mail me directly if you feel this doesn't belong on
the list, and please accept my apologies for trespassing... :-)

Many thanks

Simon
--
Simon Martin
London Uk
020 8386 5828
PGP KEY ID 0x8CFFC9E6 @ http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371/
*Please note my e-mail address is now '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'*

Re: OT? Please help me help someone else...

[Dave Sill]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

In a weak moment I promised a charity that I would look into how
difficult it would be for them to have their own web based email system.
I guess this shouldn't be too hard but as I'm not at all technical I'm
hoping you people can help me tell them what they need in terms of
software.

It may not be too hard, but it won't be easy. Or quick. Or
maintenance free.

There's no such thing as a free web-based e-mail system. There's going
to be a substantial investment of time, money, or both--even if free
software is used exclusively. And we haven't even considered h/w
costs.

4) Cheap! I told them that it could most likely be done entirely with
open source software.

Cheap is relative. A turnkey commercial implementation of such a
system might cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. A cheap homebrewed
version might only cost tens of thousands.

Would qmail be a good base for this system?

Sure.

Which front end do you suggest?

I haven't evaluated them, and I don't even know which would meet your
needs.

-Dave