[clue-tech] Mail server questions

[Jim Ockers]

Hi Matt,

I use CentOS and Thunderbird for e-mail.  For remote access I use nx to 
log in and get my desktop.  Lazy but effective, and I don't have to muck 
around with some webmail server and folders.

Cyrus IMAP is a bitch to set up but once working it's fine.

http://smfs.sourceforge.net/ plus spamassassin will probably get rid of 
most of your spam.  A bit tricky to set up but worth the effort.  
Thunderbird's junk classifier can probably do the rest once you train it.

For testing, well that is trickier, YMMV and good luck! :)

HTH
Jim

Matt Gushee wrote:
> So, I'm preparing to revive my long-dormant Web site(s), which also 
> means my e-mail server. I'm moving from a shared hosting service to a 
> virtual private server, which of course means I will be responsible 
> for all my own e-mail functionality. Yes, I know, I could just use 
> GMail. Don't wanna do it. I have my reasons.
>
> Anyway, I have the following questions:
>
>  1) I fairly often need to access e-mail when I'm out and about, but
>     still like to use Thunderbird (or some other desktop program) at
>     home as my primary client. So what I'm thinking about doing is:
>
>     * Run a POP3 server.
>     * Use a Webmail application, probably RoundCube, for remote
>       access, but set it to not delete messages on the server.
>     * Keep my current desktop setup, with Thunderbird downloading
>       and deleting everything.
>
>     Has anybody done it this way? Did it work well for you? Any pitfalls
>     I should know about?
>
>     (BTW, I am also considering IMAP, but I'm leery of leaving mail on
>      the server because I am starting with a low-priced service plan
>      that doesn't provide a huge amount of disk space).
>
>  2) I'm planning to use Postfix for SMTP, but am not sure about
>     POP/IMAP. Recommendations?
>
>  3) And of course a spam question: a significant amount of the spam I
>     get is spoofing one of my two domain names. Now, I think it should
>     be pretty easy to detect those, since I know my own mail server's
>     IP address, and nothing originating from any other host should
>     claim to be from my domain. Any reason I shouldn't send the spoofed
>     messages straight to /dev/null?
>
>  4) Finally, how should I go about testing my setup before going live? I
>     just want to have a reasonable degree of certainty that my e-mail
>     (especially incoming) won't be interrupted when I switch over the
>     DNS/MX records.
>
> Thanks for any input!
>