I've ordered myself a small server...

D

Drunkard #1

Expert Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2007
Messages
3,668
Reaction score
18
It's atom based, and I'd like to run a local email and ftp server on it.

What software and OS should I use.

I've got a standard Telkom internet connection, so I don't have a static IP or my own domain name; what are my options? I need to send mail originating from my UPS and photocopier, receiving isn't such an issue, but it'll be nice to have control of the staffs email addresses, aliases and so on. If I was to register my own domain name, would I need a different type of ISP account to be able to use it?

Thanks.
 
Would definitely NOT recommend running a mail server on a dynamic IP. What might be suitable to you would be to use google apps for mail. You just need to register the domain (and get some DNS hosting), sign up for google apps and set up your DNS to use their mail servers. This way your mail is reliable, web based, control panel for setting up addresses etc.

If you do really want to run a mail server on a dynamic IP you will need a DNS host that has some sort of interface for dynamic IPs. DynDNS seems to be the most well known and supported dynamic DNS host. You could always set www.domain.com to go to a "real" web host, while office.domain.com is your dynamic IP.

Software and OS on your server depends on what you want to do with it of course. You could get ubuntu and an FTP server installed pretty quickly. Then maybe you want to look at a proxy server like squid to save a bit of data, block a few sites, etc.
 
Linux.

Dynamic IP services, such as no-ip or dyndns.

Use smarthosts on your Linux box to send via your ISP's SMTP server. This bypasses most of the smtp-from-dynamic-Ip issues, you won't get blacklisted.

Client of ours got a redhat box on iburst (dynamic IP) - this box runs fetchmail to fetch mail from a mail host, and uses said host's SMTP server to send mail. Works fine still.
 
OK, so I'll give up on the idea of hosting my own mail server.

What I understand is that I set up a normal mail server application as a smart host, (I'll probably be back later to ask how.:)) and set that server as the 'mail server' on my copier and UPS. The local server will then forward my mail to my ISP for delivery.

Back to the software/OS question. I guess the options are FreeBSD or Linux (Ubuntu server?), Sendmail or Postfix, and I have no clue on FTP servers. Suggestions. Thanks.
 
I went with ubuntu server and the default FTP application. I still haven't tried to set up the smarthost mail server, but the CPU usage is pretty low at the moment. When you can get a complete Atom server for R1500, I don't see the point of less powerful second hand servers.
 
Agree with all the posts, using a linux box and using dyndns will totally sort you out. Just setup your DNS to point to your dyndns alias and you are done. Postfix is probably the easiest way to go.
 
Drunkard #1 said:
I went with ubuntu server and the default FTP application. I still haven't tried to set up the smarthost mail server, but the CPU usage is pretty low at the moment. When you can get a complete Atom server for R1500, I don't see the point of less powerful second hand servers.
Click to expand...
Where you buying from ?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X