RE: Email and Web Hosting

[Shawn L via NANOG]

There's also Rackspace.  They have e-mail and web hosting, etc.


-Original Message-
From: "Ryan Finnesey via NANOG" 
Sent: Thursday, July 8, 2021 10:56pm
To: "Steve Saner" , "nanog@nanog.org" 
Subject: RE: Email and Web Hosting




If the client base wants to stick with basic IMAP/POP3 email Tucows/OpenSRS has 
a good platform.  Also a few years ago my company migrated business email 
accounts and domains from an ISP and moved them to Office 365 and did a revenue 
share with the ISP.  They where happy still got a bit of revenue  but did not 
have to support it.
 
Ryan
 
 

From: NANOG  On Behalf Of 
Steve Saner
Sent: Tuesday, July 6, 2021 10:42 AM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Email and Web Hosting
 
I hope this isn't too far off topic for this list.

 
We acquired a small ISP a couple years ago that has its roots in the "local 
ISPs" of the 90s. This ISP is still hosting email and web services for 
customers both on company domains as well as customer domains. There is some 
decent revenue coming from these services, but cost of maintenance is becoming 
a challenge. We are looking at migrating to another platform or completely 
discontinuing those services.

 
I'm wondering if others here have gone through that process and have any advice 
as to how to go about it. 

 
--
Steve Saner | Senior Network Engineer
ideatek INTERNET FREEDOM FOR ALL
Cell: 620-860-9433 | 111 Old Mill Lane, Buhler, KS 67522 | [ ideatek.com ]( 
http://www.ideatek.com/ )
This email transmission and any documents, files or previous email messages 
attached to it may contain confidential information. If the reader of this 
message is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for 
delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that 
any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly 
prohibited. If you are not or believe you may not be the intended recipient, 
please advise the sender immediately by return email or by calling 
620.543.5026. Then, please take all steps necessary to permanently delete the 
email and all attachments from your computer system. No trees were affected by 
this transmission – though a few billion photons were mildly inconvenienced.

RE: Email and Web Hosting

[Ryan Finnesey via NANOG]

If the client base wants to stick with basic IMAP/POP3 email Tucows/OpenSRS has 
a good platform.  Also a few years ago my company migrated business email 
accounts and domains from an ISP and moved them to Office 365 and did a revenue 
share with the ISP.  They where happy still got a bit of revenue  but did not 
have to support it.

Ryan


From: NANOG  On Behalf Of 
Steve Saner
Sent: Tuesday, July 6, 2021 10:42 AM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Email and Web Hosting

I hope this isn't too far off topic for this list.

We acquired a small ISP a couple years ago that has its roots in the "local 
ISPs" of the 90s. This ISP is still hosting email and web services for 
customers both on company domains as well as customer domains. There is some 
decent revenue coming from these services, but cost of maintenance is becoming 
a challenge. We are looking at migrating to another platform or completely 
discontinuing those services.

I'm wondering if others here have gone through that process and have any advice 
as to how to go about it.

--

Steve Saner | Senior Network Engineer

ideatek INTERNET FREEDOM FOR ALL

Cell: 620-860-9433 | 111 Old Mill Lane, Buhler, KS 67522 | 
ideatek.com

This email transmission and any documents, files or previous email messages 
attached to it may contain confidential information. If the reader of this 
message is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for 
delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that 
any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly 
prohibited. If you are not or believe you may not be the intended recipient, 
please advise the sender immediately by return email or by calling 
620.543.5026. Then, please take all steps necessary to permanently delete the 
email and all attachments from your computer system. No trees were affected by 
this transmission – though a few billion photons were mildly inconvenienced.

RE: Email and Web Hosting

[Ryan Finnesey via NANOG]

Tucows/OpenSRS works well for “ISP email”

From: NANOG  On Behalf Of 
K. Scott Helms
Sent: Tuesday, July 6, 2021 11:14 AM
To: Steve Saner 
Cc: NANOG list 
Subject: Re: Email and Web Hosting

Two decent options, one on prem and the other fully hosted.

Tucows/OpenSRS has a fully hosted email offering that was built for ISPs to 
resell.  (They also have domain registration and some other ISP focused 
services.)

https://opensrs.com/services/hosted-email/

MagicMail is an email (including webmail) suite that you run on prem.  It is 
comparatively inexpensive but also fully supported.  It's built largely on 
qmail, but they replaced some of the components to deal with spam and virus 
filtering more efficiently.

https://www.magicmail.com/

I have direct experience with both and have used them both for ISPs 
specifically.

Scott Helms


On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 10:44 AM Steve Saner 
mailto:ssa...@ideatek.com>> wrote:
I hope this isn't too far off topic for this list.

We acquired a small ISP a couple years ago that has its roots in the "local 
ISPs" of the 90s. This ISP is still hosting email and web services for 
customers both on company domains as well as customer domains. There is some 
decent revenue coming from these services, but cost of maintenance is becoming 
a challenge. We are looking at migrating to another platform or completely 
discontinuing those services.

I'm wondering if others here have gone through that process and have any advice 
as to how to go about it.

--

Steve Saner | Senior Network Engineer

ideatek INTERNET FREEDOM FOR ALL

Cell: 620-860-9433 | 111 Old Mill Lane, Buhler, KS 67522 | 
ideatek.com<http://www.ideatek.com/>

This email transmission and any documents, files or previous email messages 
attached to it may contain confidential information. If the reader of this 
message is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for 
delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that 
any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly 
prohibited. If you are not or believe you may not be the intended recipient, 
please advise the sender immediately by return email or by calling 
620.543.5026. Then, please take all steps necessary to permanently delete the 
email and all attachments from your computer system. No trees were affected by 
this transmission – though a few billion photons were mildly inconvenienced.

Re: Email and Web Hosting

[Steve Saner]

This is good to know. I have also considered it for a number of things.
Glad to know that it works.


On Wed, Jul 7, 2021 at 10:30 AM John Levine  wrote:

> It appears that Steve Saner  said:
> >-=-=-=-=-=-
> >
> >The issue is not an understanding of how to run the system. The issue is
> >that it isn't our core business and we want to minimize/eliminate the
> money
> >and time needed to maintain the infrastructure and support the services.
>
> I agree that Tucows' white label service is a good choice.  I've been
> using it for some
> of my customers for years.
>
> --
> Regards,
> John Levine, jo...@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for
> Dummies",
> Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
>


-- 

Steve Saner | Senior Network Engineer

ideatek INTERNET FREEDOM FOR ALL

Cell: 620-860-9433 | 111 Old Mill Lane, Buhler, KS 67522 | ideatek.com


This email transmission and any documents, files or previous email messages
attached to it may contain confidential information. If the reader of this
message is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible
for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby
notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this
communication is strictly prohibited. If you are not or believe you may not
be the intended recipient, please advise the sender immediately by return
email or by calling 620.543.5026. Then, please take all steps necessary to
permanently delete the email and all attachments from your computer system.
No trees were affected by this transmission – though a few billion photons
were mildly inconvenienced.

Re: Email and Web Hosting

[John Levine]

It appears that Steve Saner  said:
>-=-=-=-=-=-
>
>The issue is not an understanding of how to run the system. The issue is
>that it isn't our core business and we want to minimize/eliminate the money
>and time needed to maintain the infrastructure and support the services.

I agree that Tucows' white label service is a good choice.  I've been using it 
for some
of my customers for years.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, jo...@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

Re: Email and Web Hosting

[Martin Hannigan]

Sounds like you already know what the decision is. If you can justify it,
no need to second guess.

If my ISP stopped providing email services I wouldn’t even know. [ may even
check if i get bored ]

Hope that helps.

YMMV,

-M<


On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 5:22 PM Steve Saner  wrote:

> The issue is not an understanding of how to run the system. The issue is
> that it isn't our core business and we want to minimize/eliminate the money
> and time needed to maintain the infrastructure and support the services.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 3:54 PM Bryan Fields  wrote:
>
>> On 7/6/21 3:26 PM, Steve Saner wrote:
>> > The current platform is a custom collection of open source software,
>> smtp,
>> > imap, pop, webmail. Web hosting is a basic LAMP stack all php 5.2 or
>> > greater. There is no interest in growing these services.
>>
>> Ok, so this really doesn't say much in terms of software in use.  Almost
>> all
>> SMTP/IMAP/POP servers are open source, and could be anything from
>> sendmail 8
>> to postfix.  If you're capping it, just run what's in place and learn it,
>> I'd
>> think most people in networking have configured apache once or twice
>> before.
>>
>> --
>> Bryan Fields
>>
>> 727-409-1194 - Voice
>> http://bryanfields.net
>>
>
>
> --
>
> Steve Saner | Senior Network Engineer
>
> ideatek INTERNET FREEDOM FOR ALL
>
> Cell: 620-860-9433 | 111 Old Mill Lane, Buhler, KS 67522 | ideatek.com
> 
>
> This email transmission and any documents, files or previous email
> messages attached to it may contain confidential information. If the reader
> of this message is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent
> responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are
> hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this
> communication is strictly prohibited. If you are not or believe you may not
> be the intended recipient, please advise the sender immediately by return
> email or by calling 620.543.5026. Then, please take all steps necessary to
> permanently delete the email and all attachments from your computer system.
> No trees were affected by this transmission – though a few billion photons
> were mildly inconvenienced.
>

Re: Email and Web Hosting

[Steve Saner]

The issue is not an understanding of how to run the system. The issue is
that it isn't our core business and we want to minimize/eliminate the money
and time needed to maintain the infrastructure and support the services.



On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 3:54 PM Bryan Fields  wrote:

> On 7/6/21 3:26 PM, Steve Saner wrote:
> > The current platform is a custom collection of open source software,
> smtp,
> > imap, pop, webmail. Web hosting is a basic LAMP stack all php 5.2 or
> > greater. There is no interest in growing these services.
>
> Ok, so this really doesn't say much in terms of software in use.  Almost
> all
> SMTP/IMAP/POP servers are open source, and could be anything from sendmail
> 8
> to postfix.  If you're capping it, just run what's in place and learn it,
> I'd
> think most people in networking have configured apache once or twice
> before.
>
> --
> Bryan Fields
>
> 727-409-1194 - Voice
> http://bryanfields.net
>


-- 

Steve Saner | Senior Network Engineer

ideatek INTERNET FREEDOM FOR ALL

Cell: 620-860-9433 | 111 Old Mill Lane, Buhler, KS 67522 | ideatek.com


This email transmission and any documents, files or previous email messages
attached to it may contain confidential information. If the reader of this
message is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible
for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby
notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this
communication is strictly prohibited. If you are not or believe you may not
be the intended recipient, please advise the sender immediately by return
email or by calling 620.543.5026. Then, please take all steps necessary to
permanently delete the email and all attachments from your computer system.
No trees were affected by this transmission – though a few billion photons
were mildly inconvenienced.

Re: Email and Web Hosting

[Bryan Fields]

On 7/6/21 3:26 PM, Steve Saner wrote:
> The current platform is a custom collection of open source software, smtp,
> imap, pop, webmail. Web hosting is a basic LAMP stack all php 5.2 or
> greater. There is no interest in growing these services.

Ok, so this really doesn't say much in terms of software in use.  Almost all
SMTP/IMAP/POP servers are open source, and could be anything from sendmail 8
to postfix.  If you're capping it, just run what's in place and learn it, I'd
think most people in networking have configured apache once or twice before.

-- 
Bryan Fields

727-409-1194 - Voice
http://bryanfields.net

Re: Email and Web Hosting

[Alain Hebert]

    Or Virtualmin, in a docker instance per Customer...  (If you are in 
the virtualization business)


    I think Bryan just don't want to deal with emails since ("support 
costs" + "headaches") > "income" at his volume.


    So better find a bulk service IMHO...

-
Alain Hebertaheb...@pubnix.net
PubNIX Inc.
50 boul. St-Charles
P.O. Box 26770 Beaconsfield, Quebec H9W 6G7
Tel: 514-990-5911  http://www.pubnix.netFax: 514-990-9443

On 7/6/21 4:05 PM, Travis Garrison wrote:


Why not migrate them to a cpanel instance?

Thanks

Travis

*From:* NANOG  *On 
Behalf Of *Steve Saner

*Sent:* Tuesday, July 6, 2021 2:27 PM
*To:* Bryan Fields 
*Cc:* nanog@nanog.org
*Subject:* Re: Email and Web Hosting

The current platform is a custom collection of open source software, 
smtp, imap, pop, webmail. Web hosting is a basic LAMP stack all php 
5.2 or greater. There is no interest in growing these services.


On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 11:02 AM Bryan Fields <mailto:br...@bryanfields.net>> wrote:


On 7/6/21 10:41 AM, Steve Saner wrote:
> I hope this isn't too far off topic for this list.
>
> We acquired a small ISP a couple years ago that has its roots in
the "local
> ISPs" of the 90s. This ISP is still hosting email and web
services for
> customers both on company domains as well as customer domains.
There is
> some decent revenue coming from these services, but cost of
maintenance is
> becoming a challenge. We are looking at migrating to another
platform or
> completely discontinuing those services.

Question, what platform(s) are you running now?  What must you
provide for
email, SMTP, IMAP, webmail, groupware, etc?  Do you have any
intention of
growing this?

For the websites, what do they need?  Are you running any old PHP
3/4 stuff?
You can setup a control panel, but if you're not running one now,
and you're
not going to expand it, why not just cap it until it becomes
unprofitable?

I'm a proponent of hosting my own email, it's not that hard and
any ISP should
be able to do it.

-- 
Bryan Fields


727-409-1194 - Voice
http://bryanfields.net <http://bryanfields.net>


--

*Steve Saner *| Senior Network Engineer

ideatek INTERNET FREEDOM FOR ALL

Cell: 620-860-9433 | 111 Old Mill Lane, Buhler, KS 67522| ideatek.com 
<http://www.ideatek.com/>


This email transmission and any documents, files or previous email 
messages attached to it may contain confidential information. If the 
reader of this message is not the intended recipient or the employee 
or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended 
recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, 
distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. 
If you are not or believe you may not be the intended recipient, 
please advise the sender immediately by return email or by calling 
620.543.5026. Then, please take all steps necessary to permanently 
delete the email and all attachments from your computer system. No 
trees were affected by this transmission – though a few billion 
photons were mildly inconvenienced.

RE: Email and Web Hosting

[Travis Garrison]

Why not migrate them to a cpanel instance?

Thanks
Travis

From: NANOG  On Behalf Of 
Steve Saner
Sent: Tuesday, July 6, 2021 2:27 PM
To: Bryan Fields 
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Email and Web Hosting

The current platform is a custom collection of open source software, smtp, 
imap, pop, webmail. Web hosting is a basic LAMP stack all php 5.2 or greater. 
There is no interest in growing these services.


On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 11:02 AM Bryan Fields 
mailto:br...@bryanfields.net>> wrote:
On 7/6/21 10:41 AM, Steve Saner wrote:
> I hope this isn't too far off topic for this list.
>
> We acquired a small ISP a couple years ago that has its roots in the "local
> ISPs" of the 90s. This ISP is still hosting email and web services for
> customers both on company domains as well as customer domains. There is
> some decent revenue coming from these services, but cost of maintenance is
> becoming a challenge. We are looking at migrating to another platform or
> completely discontinuing those services.

Question, what platform(s) are you running now?  What must you provide for
email, SMTP, IMAP, webmail, groupware, etc?  Do you have any intention of
growing this?

For the websites, what do they need?  Are you running any old PHP 3/4 stuff?
You can setup a control panel, but if you're not running one now, and you're
not going to expand it, why not just cap it until it becomes unprofitable?

I'm a proponent of hosting my own email, it's not that hard and any ISP should
be able to do it.

--
Bryan Fields

727-409-1194 - Voice
http://bryanfields.net


--

Steve Saner | Senior Network Engineer

ideatek INTERNET FREEDOM FOR ALL

Cell: 620-860-9433 | 111 Old Mill Lane, Buhler, KS 67522 | 
ideatek.com<http://www.ideatek.com/>

This email transmission and any documents, files or previous email messages 
attached to it may contain confidential information. If the reader of this 
message is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for 
delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that 
any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly 
prohibited. If you are not or believe you may not be the intended recipient, 
please advise the sender immediately by return email or by calling 
620.543.5026. Then, please take all steps necessary to permanently delete the 
email and all attachments from your computer system. No trees were affected by 
this transmission – though a few billion photons were mildly inconvenienced.

Re: Email and Web Hosting

[Steve Saner]

The current platform is a custom collection of open source software, smtp,
imap, pop, webmail. Web hosting is a basic LAMP stack all php 5.2 or
greater. There is no interest in growing these services.


On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 11:02 AM Bryan Fields  wrote:

> On 7/6/21 10:41 AM, Steve Saner wrote:
> > I hope this isn't too far off topic for this list.
> >
> > We acquired a small ISP a couple years ago that has its roots in the
> "local
> > ISPs" of the 90s. This ISP is still hosting email and web services for
> > customers both on company domains as well as customer domains. There is
> > some decent revenue coming from these services, but cost of maintenance
> is
> > becoming a challenge. We are looking at migrating to another platform or
> > completely discontinuing those services.
>
> Question, what platform(s) are you running now?  What must you provide for
> email, SMTP, IMAP, webmail, groupware, etc?  Do you have any intention of
> growing this?
>
> For the websites, what do they need?  Are you running any old PHP 3/4
> stuff?
> You can setup a control panel, but if you're not running one now, and
> you're
> not going to expand it, why not just cap it until it becomes unprofitable?
>
> I'm a proponent of hosting my own email, it's not that hard and any ISP
> should
> be able to do it.
>
> --
> Bryan Fields
>
> 727-409-1194 - Voice
> http://bryanfields.net
>


-- 

Steve Saner | Senior Network Engineer

ideatek INTERNET FREEDOM FOR ALL

Cell: 620-860-9433 | 111 Old Mill Lane, Buhler, KS 67522 | ideatek.com


This email transmission and any documents, files or previous email messages
attached to it may contain confidential information. If the reader of this
message is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible
for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby
notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this
communication is strictly prohibited. If you are not or believe you may not
be the intended recipient, please advise the sender immediately by return
email or by calling 620.543.5026. Then, please take all steps necessary to
permanently delete the email and all attachments from your computer system.
No trees were affected by this transmission – though a few billion photons
were mildly inconvenienced.

Re: Email and Web Hosting

[Bryan Fields]

On 7/6/21 10:41 AM, Steve Saner wrote:
> I hope this isn't too far off topic for this list.
> 
> We acquired a small ISP a couple years ago that has its roots in the "local
> ISPs" of the 90s. This ISP is still hosting email and web services for
> customers both on company domains as well as customer domains. There is
> some decent revenue coming from these services, but cost of maintenance is
> becoming a challenge. We are looking at migrating to another platform or
> completely discontinuing those services.

Question, what platform(s) are you running now?  What must you provide for
email, SMTP, IMAP, webmail, groupware, etc?  Do you have any intention of
growing this?

For the websites, what do they need?  Are you running any old PHP 3/4 stuff?
You can setup a control panel, but if you're not running one now, and you're
not going to expand it, why not just cap it until it becomes unprofitable?

I'm a proponent of hosting my own email, it's not that hard and any ISP should
be able to do it.

-- 
Bryan Fields

727-409-1194 - Voice
http://bryanfields.net

Re: Email and Web Hosting

[K. Scott Helms]

Two decent options, one on prem and the other fully hosted.

Tucows/OpenSRS has a fully hosted email offering that was built for ISPs to
resell.  (They also have domain registration and some other ISP focused
services.)

https://opensrs.com/services/hosted-email/

MagicMail is an email (including webmail) suite that you run on prem.  It
is comparatively inexpensive but also fully supported.  It's built largely
on qmail, but they replaced some of the components to deal with spam and
virus filtering more efficiently.

https://www.magicmail.com/

I have direct experience with both and have used them both for ISPs
specifically.

Scott Helms



On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 10:44 AM Steve Saner  wrote:

> I hope this isn't too far off topic for this list.
>
> We acquired a small ISP a couple years ago that has its roots in the
> "local ISPs" of the 90s. This ISP is still hosting email and web services
> for customers both on company domains as well as customer domains. There is
> some decent revenue coming from these services, but cost of maintenance is
> becoming a challenge. We are looking at migrating to another platform or
> completely discontinuing those services.
>
> I'm wondering if others here have gone through that process and have any
> advice as to how to go about it.
>
> --
>
> Steve Saner | Senior Network Engineer
>
> ideatek INTERNET FREEDOM FOR ALL
>
> Cell: 620-860-9433 | 111 Old Mill Lane, Buhler, KS 67522 | ideatek.com
> 
>
> This email transmission and any documents, files or previous email
> messages attached to it may contain confidential information. If the reader
> of this message is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent
> responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are
> hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this
> communication is strictly prohibited. If you are not or believe you may not
> be the intended recipient, please advise the sender immediately by return
> email or by calling 620.543.5026. Then, please take all steps necessary to
> permanently delete the email and all attachments from your computer system.
> No trees were affected by this transmission – though a few billion photons
> were mildly inconvenienced.
>