want to have my own email server.... what's the best route?

[gopunk]

it'd would be extremely low traffic, basically for my personal use. any recommendations are welcome... would it be better to set it up myself, or have a company host something for me? the problem is with most of the paid email providers, they charge you an arm and a leg, because they think you're some company outsourcing email....

 

[spanky]

and the countdown to lifer begins...

 

[Daniel]

You want a site too? Maybe check out that 3-95.com that was a monster post in hot deals and just use the email part?
Otherwise find a place that can park the domain and just give you email if that is all you want, a few places do that.

 

[Evadman]

I use 602pro. I have had it running for almost a year, with no problems yet. PM me if you want more info.

 

[d33pt]

first you need a domain and a dns server...

 

[DanFungus]

if you do it yourself....what program to use?
(also trying to figure it out)

 

[Descartes]

Get a domain (register w/ dotster.com, for instance), setup a system w/ your email daemon of choice, find a dns server you can use or setup your own to add MX records to point to your server (everydns.net is great, and it's free).

 

[gopunk]

thanks guys... i already know about the basics, like mx records and all that stuff.

the more i think about it, the more a paid solution seems to be better... i'm on attbi cable, which doesn't give you a static ip, and it'd be a lot of time and money to set up a server... blah. life sucks, it's always about compromises....

if anybody knows of any service like what i'm describing, one where i have more or less full control over the server, and is cheap, please let me know i mean, if bandwidth is rediculously low, it shouldn't cost that much right?

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Could you have the mail server just running in the background on your PC? (in other words, you don't need a whole seperate system for this, right?)
If that's the case, there must be some simple pop/smtp server software out there. I know that Win2k comes with an smtp server which is very useful for me (I have it set up to only accept connections from inside), but I don't think it handles pop.

 

[silverpig]

Old computer + linux + email + no rebooting(static IP that way) = good
Besides, you can have router + firewall for free too
Alls you need is a $100 computer.

 

[gopunk]

<< Old computer + linux + email + no rebooting(static IP that way) = good
Besides, you can have router + firewall for free too
Alls you need is a $100 computer. >>



this is true... but i'm not sure how reliable attbi is... i've never really had a chance to test how long a connection lasts before it goes down. but i guess if there are no good paid solutions, that's the best way.

sir frederic... i have like 5 fans for my computer, one of which is a delta, leaving it on would probably drive my inability to sleep to new heights

 

[calpha]

I used FREESCO to run on an old box w/ two NICS, and set up my email server behind it with PORT 25 forwarded to it (Obviously, it was a static internal IP). IT worked fine. Freesco has a Dyndns client that will automatically update your registered dyndns.org name and that was fairly difficult to set up in the FREESCO setup, but once I got it, it worked fine. I was lucky in that my Cable provider (Time Warner) hardly ever changed my IP. DYNDNS handled my MX Record, and Freesco updated the main entry. FREESCO wouldn't update the MX Record automatically when my IP did change, so I just checked my IP every day, and if it changed, I updated my MX record.

Never had a problem running that way. Used it as a way to learn exchange, and it worked fine.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

<< sir frederic... i have like 5 fans for my computer, one of which is a delta, leaving it on would probably drive my inability to sleep to new heights >>



Oh, I see. I can't stand rebooting, so my computer is on 24/7...I tend to assume that other people treat their computers the same way.

 

[gopunk]

<< I used FREESCO to run on an old box w/ two NICS, and set up my email server behind it with PORT 25 forwarded to it (Obviously, it was a static internal IP). IT worked fine. Freesco has a Dyndns client that will automatically update your registered dyndns.org name and that was fairly difficult to set up in the FREESCO setup, but once I got it, it worked fine. I was lucky in that my Cable provider (Time Warner) hardly ever changed my IP. DYNDNS handled my MX Record, and Freesco updated the main entry. FREESCO wouldn't update the MX Record automatically when my IP did change, so I just checked my IP every day, and if it changed, I updated my MX record.
Never had a problem running that way. Used it as a way to learn exchange, and it worked fine. >>



i'm confused, wasn't the point of dyndns to automatically update your mx record? or is this just what you were doing in the meantime, before you figured out how to set up dyndns?

 

[b0mbrman]

Hmmm...that *would* be pretty cool