On Tuesday 02 August 2005 06:04 pm, JB wrote:
Hi gang,
First, let it be known that I'm familiar with using SuSE linux as a normal, everyday *user*, and can *usually* fix any small problems that pop up on my system. I've *never* administrated any kind of 'server', ever.
So, what I'm looking to do is this...
How hard is it to run a simple e-mail server on a system at a friends house (he has DSL which I can't get way out here in the woods) for maybe a few hundred people to use? They're all in different states from me, so it's not a networking thing...I hope (networking confuses me to no end).
How would these folks send an e-mail to/through it and it get to where they want it to be? I mean, say I send an e-mail with Kmail. I have to use my ISP's smtp host/server thing, so how would the people who want to use this server do this? (I hope that makes sense)
What would be a good, secure e-mail server to setup?
Would it be much different setting up this server than say setting up my Kmail that I use every day?
What would be the things that I should be most concerned about when setting it up and using it?
Next, I've also been asked if I'd be willing to manage a web server. This scares me even more than trying an e-mail server thing, but I said I'd look into it. Say I use Apache to serve a website (is that correct?), would I just be able to take the current website's html stuff and just drop it to wherever in Apache and it would run? How would I know what the URL would be for people to see it?
As you can see, it's a lot to ask, and I could do a mess of reading, but I'm hoping for some sorta quick and easy/simple answers to just get me started so I'll have an idea if it'll be too difficult for me to do or not. Also, I understand that a simple, not-too-expensive system would work fine, but would the graphics card make a difference in how anyone coming to the site on my server make any difference, or is that just for the monitor that's hooked up to the system?
Maybe you should start with the rationale of why you want to do this..... because there may be much simpler, easier ways to do it. For example, for about $7/month I know where you can get a dandy hosted site that will do all this for you and provide good controls for setting up email accts, ftp, web hosting, etc.... a lot for the money. Basically you have a lot to learn.... (not a put down) You didn't once mention a domain name or static ip address. Although you can use a dynip.org or such, you're adding to the complexity. Much better to have a domain name which also could be applied to my scenario above. Actually the web server is a lot less daunting than the email. With both you would have to deal with some networking and a good firewall. With email you'd have to set up all 100 users on your server machine so they can pop their email. You'd need some kind of spam filtering, and allow people to use smtp on the server from all over the net... not an easy task to do and yet keep out the spammers. So what's your pleasure?