Hosting mail on my own server

[AtW]

there are 2 parts to email:

receiving and sending. The latter can be acheived by using your ISPs mail server, while you can run your own mail server to receive and keep mail. This way you are safe that no one would get into your mail server and spam someone for which you may get yoru connection terminated.

[RobAnt]

GroupWise (included with the Free version of Novell Small Business Suite 6 - a fully functioning 5 user version for SMEs) is able to send via SMTP and, with the help of the optionally available Pop Forwarding Agent, receive your incoming email from your ISP.

This will enable you to close port 25 (I think that's right - but check) and avoid opening your server up as an SMTP relay.

[AtW]

> This will enable you to close port 25 (I think that's right - but
> check) and avoid opening your server up as an SMTP relay.

Mr Novell Lover strikes again you need port 25 to operate SMTP server. You can disable relaying _and_ still run it.

GroupWise is the worst thing ever!

[Vetran]

For windows Ftgate I have heard rated, no personal experience.

NTL actually provide a dns name for you in my experience something like [exch][rack]-etc try doing a lookup on your current IP address. That stays current even if the IP address changes - according to the senior NTL engineer I spoke to (I know he was senior he knew what a screwdriver looked like).

As far as open relay its probably best if you limit to only your local subnet addresses and logged in users. You can of course close your send port (25) inbound, outbound will make its own way through the firewall unless you block the port both ways (difficult to do on cheap firewalls).

For Linux the tool of choice is Postfix, many variants all good, some a little more complicated than you probably need. Use webmin to set it up and you don't have to play with config files too much.

If you must use exchange take advantage of the lockdown tool it makes providing a simple level of security fairly easy (OK its not perfect but its better than nothing).

[RobAnt]

you need port 25 to operate SMTP server. You can disable relaying _and_ still run it.

Yes, of course, but if you don't want a public IP number issued to a server on your LAN, you can use NAT and POP3 your email rather than collect via SMTP. Its just a little added touch. You can still send SMTP, and with the correct hosting service (I use Ghoulnet - but there must be others) you do not have to be limited to a set number of email accounts.

I'd rather have my GroupWise email server up and running 24/7/52 - a system unaffectable by trojan & virus attack, unlike M$s Exchange with it's average 2 weeks/year downtime.

[AtW]

The hard bit with your mail server is NOT to be able to SEND mail - plenty of open relays around (BT springs in mind), but to be able to RECEIVE mail - i dont mean to reading from server using POP3, I mean RECEIVING it from other mail servers, ie you should be able to support SMTP on port 25.