Yet another webserver building question

[yugpatel]

Which route should I take?
I have volunteered at one of the local religious organization. My role would be a computer tech support. This organization has acquired the basic business internet service from bright house with the static IP. Organization needs to send e-mail to around 300 recipients once a week or every other week. As they have static IP, I am inclining towards registering the domain and run own web and mail server to minimize the maintenance cost associated with the third party web hosting and e-mail servicing. I expect the web traffic at very minimal. One of the donors have donated old server. Can I run both, web server as well as mail server on the same server? This is the only server at my disposal. Should I install Lamp (all in one) for easy maintenance?
I have watched some you tube video about “Linux Servers for Beginners” by PuppyLinuxWorld on Youtube.
I have registered the domain with register.com and under “A record”, I entered “www.organizationname.com points to xx.xx.xx.xx “ (static ip provided by bright house).

Do I need to change “Domain Name System Servers” from dns037.b.register.com to point to Bright House DNS or not?

What would be my MX record entry look like on register.com profile? It requires :
HostName Priority Mail Server
.organizationName.com

What changes do I need to make at register.com under “advanced technical settings”?
I have very minimal/no experience as far as web site building/hosting and server installation. Any step by step guide to achieve this task is highly appreciated.
I am considering Ubuntu LTS Server edition unless someone suggests otherwise.

 

[Cerb]

I would not run email, unless it is somehow required. The value is too good with hosted. Their current email provider might not be a great value, or provide great service, but going from hosted back to local email is likely to be a nightmare, and sap your time, all for pretty meager savings. Look into other email hosting options. It's not just that you set up an email server, and then an AV/SPAM front-end, but that as you get them working right, you will have end-user problems occupying a ton of your time. Plus, you'll get annoyed users every time power or internet drops. Hosted leaves you on the hook for so much less.

Web server, though, depends. But, how much are they paying now? Vivi's MadGenius might have just the thing. Someone else might, too, but gotta plug stuff from our guy at AT, first . Local web hosting might be viable for a church, but look around at hosted options, first, and keep in mind that the local server's power consumption is not free.

 

[yugpatel]

My intention is to learn installing web server as well as mail server and at the same time it will be useful rig too.

 

[mfenn]

DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT try to run an incoming/outgoing mail server that people other than yourself rely on unless you are highly experienced (which it sounds like you are not). Keep doing what you're doing now, or move to Google Apps for Nonprofits.

The web serving side of things is a little more nebulous because it is less critical. You only need to change the A record, don't mess with the NS records. If you ping the domain name, and you see your static IP show up, then its set up correctly.

 

[Cerb]

100% agreed. Local mail is a bad idea, if it's possible not to do it. Seriously, mail setup, especially considering the various security aspects, is simply a nightmare. Do not do it. Like a SAN, it's something people want to do, not knowing what they're getting into, but that is usually a bad idea, unless all other options have been exhausted. With the internet of the 90s, it made sense, but not today.

Churches, being small community entities, though, tend to like non-hosted web, even with all the possible downtime issues, because they can deal with people they can actually talk to, instead of a vague web hosting entity with thousands of other customers. It doesn't make business sense, any more than mail does, but it's also not the configuration and support minefield (use an OS that isn't too old, deny all ports but those used for web and SSH, disallow direct root login, disallow SSH from outside IPs, make sure any management tools in the server, like IPMI, aren't exposed too much, and you'll be golden), and there seems to be a psychological issue at play, from what I've seen, with churches and private schools, about it.

For that matter, if you want a learning experience out of it, go ahead and start by taking their donated server home, and getting virtuals running on it, and setting up backups, and trying restores, of them. Then, when actually setting up the web server, you'll have the manageability of a non-physical OS doing the work, and some other useful experience along with it. If their server is older than a Core 2 era one, don't even use it. If it's Core 2 era or newer, let the hypervisor be the only bare OS on it, whatever hypervisor you end up with. You can try VMWare's, MS', and Xen for free, and each may be free or cheap in the end to use in production, as well. So get a little home lab setup and start tinkering, before actually changing any hosting around.