Actually... I'm left wondering if this mailserver is really meant to be an IMAP only mailserver or just an IMAP capable mailserver? Most users like to use POP and keep their mail locally but have the option to use a Webmail program when away. If that is the case, there are a lot of things talked about that really are pretty outlandish. Heck, a lot of ISPs still have a 5meg quota on their users! Yup, one of the larger ones in this area defaults to that.. a phone call is all it takes to get it raised, but I can see their point. If you give them 100megs it'll get filled up. Many users don't even use email except on hotmail or yahoo. Spammers' dictionaries are constantly finding non-mail user accounts on my boxes. Mother Nature abhors an unfilled harddisk.
The OP said IMAP only.
Also, if the school can only afford to use an old machine like this, how much 'time' can they afford to put into a highly customized system? There's the learning curve..... and as well, many times the 'person responsible' changes frequently in a college setting. Having something which someone else can take over is an important issue. "Simple" is relative... once you've done it five or so times.. yeah, it's simple. :)
Yes, that's why I don't buy a use what's bundled line of thinking unless of course it fits the bill.
Many of us have to know something about a LOT, and simply don't have the time to know a LOT about something. Like having a good grasp of everything from setting up webservers, DNS, email, to building sites/pages understanding some of the programming languages to doing tech calls for folks whose "Outlook is stuck", who many times don't know the difference between Outlook and MSIE! This is said just to point out the idea of thinking about the 'level' of the posters inquiry and situation.
I think we could easily handle AOL's, MSN's and Yahoo's email with what has been discussed... but it might take more that a 40G drive... ;)
Nope, what has been discussed will not go anywhere near handling AOL/MSN/Yahoo.
No one has yet touched on email account existence check. With vpopmail and mysql-enabled postfix, that's set. I believe Karanbir mentioned something about cyrus + Web-cyradmin + pam_mysql but that did not touch on postfix doing the existence check which depends on the table schema used.
Large site does not have to be a frigging monster site...what about multiple office enterprises? How would you handle those? Running a mail store takes a fair bit of work to get a problem free (save hardware problems) setup.