How do I setup a mail server with my own Domain Name

[RBlount]

So with the constant problem of having to change email addresses (e.g. ATTBI to Comcast, SBC/Pacbell to Yahoo, etc.) My dad came up with the great idea to register our own domain name and setup our own email addresses. Of course, he wants me to figure out how to do this!

So I am appealing to the experts: What would be the best (and least costly) way of setting up a mail server on our own domain.
I know we can register our own domain name easily and that some of the registar services offer email services, but at $20/year, the money adds up quickly. We need a minimum of 6 email address between the two families.

He has SBC/Yahoo DSL service and I have ATT Broadband (soon to be Comcast), so neither one of us could host a mail server directly.

Anybody have any ideas?

-Rob

 

[JackMDS]

If paying $20 a year is a problem I doubt you will find any reasonable solution that is under your control.

Get free accounts at mail.com or lycos.com they seem to be solid over the years.

The best way to deal with the issue is to register a domain and put it on a hosting service. The Hosting space includes installed email server that is totally under your control.

Look at this link, you can choose the $8.95 twice a year plan, registration of a domain is $14.95.

($8.95 x 2) = $18 + $14.95=$33 per year for 50MB space and 50 emails accounts.

You can put a server at home and use a Dynamic DNS Service. It will be a nice learning experience. However the Domain fees, and cost of electricity to keeping a dedicated computer on all the time is probably will cost more then the hosting solution.

 

[RBlount]

It's not the $20/yr that bothers me, it is the $20/year/nickname (or at least $120/year) plus domain.

I wish I could setup the server at home, but ATTBI doesn't allow for servers to be installed. (I am pretty sure that SBC/Yahoo has the same policy.)

JackMDS - You mention a link in your reply, but there was none there. Do you have a link?

-Rob

 

[Fallen Kell]

Well, you still have choices...one of them though includes you changing from cable modem to DSL...this is probably the easiest and best way, but it really depends on the DSL level of service you can get at your location. Usually a 768/128 down/up connection is comparable in price to cable. It can also be comparable in performance to cable depending on where you are and how many people were on the cable block that you shared.

DSL for the most part doesn't care what you run, as long as its legal. But before you consider the switch, check any/all hardware that you use, especially if you have a router and make sure your main router supports PPPoE. You could then run a mail server off your connection.

You "might" still be able to run a mail server on cable. I personally havn't seen any port scans on port 25 comming from Comcast, but I havn't looked in a while since I have a router as my firewall. They only use to scan for telnet, websites, but I configured my firewall to simply ignore all requests from any Comcast systems. Many software firewalls can do this inluding ZoneAlarm. All you would have to do it open up your router to port forward on port 25 to your mail server, and have ZoneAlarm on the mail server simply ignore any IP address ranges that the scans come from. I would suggest having it log all connections to that port for a few days/weeks and look through the list of IP's that you know are comming from ATT/Comcast and then just ignore those IP subnets. You might lose a little bit of email, but in reality the only people who could not email you will be other people on those networks, and you could get around that by using a free email service like hotmail or yahoo or any of a number of them.

 

[JackMDS]

Well the approach that I suggested will let you have as many a 50 individual email accounts, and probably few hundreds nick names in each. The cost of about $33 a year. (You can even sell some "nick names" to you friends and defer the cost).

Sorry about the missing link: Look at the "Twice a Year Plan".

 

[nvektus]

Originally posted by: RBlount

He has SBC/Yahoo DSL service and I have ATT Broadband (soon to be Comcast), so neither one of us could host a mail server directly.

Sure you can! That if you're willing to spend the time to setup a server, especially a mail server.