On Jun 19, 2005, at 11:49 PM, Jimmy Bradley wrote:
I agree, what I'm trying to do is overkill, but I'm doing it for a couple of reasons. First for the learning experience, second, bellsouth has problems with their smtp server at the worst times, and being able to send and receive email is a critical part of my job. You're right. I know nothing about administering a server of anykind, this would be a good time to learn. I guess one question I need to ask now is, how do I go about getting an unused domain name for my machine? Also, bellsouth said that I would not be violating my service agreement.
first off, to find an unused domain name, go to just about any registrar's home page (i've had good experiences with GoDaddy (http:// www.godaddy.com), but there are other good registrars as well) and you should find domain search functionality. if you don't have a fixed IP address, you may find a service such as ZoneEdit (http:// www.zoneedit.com) useful.
let's take a step back, though: are you undertaking this project because you need better mail service than bellsouth provides, or are you doing it to learn how to administer a mail server? i would suggest you pick one or the other: if you're learning, you will undoubtedly make mistakes, and that needs to be OK. if you're depending on this mail server to do your job, i'd recommend against using it for your learning experiences, because if it's mission- critical then when you screw up you're hurting yourself.
if you really want to learn nuts and bolts, stay away from turnkey or prepackaged solutions; build the various parts yourself, from source, and read all the documentation. if you want something that'll just work, go with qmailtoaster; however, bear in mind that it may be somewhat opaque or confusing if you want to set up anything that differs from the default configuration.
-steve
--- If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction. - Fabian, Twelfth Night, III,v