[CentOS] Planning Mail Server (with low resources)

Wed Dec 7 02:55:30 UTC 2005
Aleksandar Milivojevic <alex at milivojevic.org>

Alain Reguera wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm planning the installation of the school's Mail Server. This is the
> first time I get in administration. I've been reading about postfix,
> cyrus  and the first page in the guide of HughesJR.com[2] about
> installing postfix-cyrus, but due my low hardware resources, I ask for
> suggestions to see If what I need can be done (and|or) stable.
> 
> Hardware:
> Pentium III 1.4Ghz
> 256 RAM
> 40 GB HD-IDE

I'm running something similar (sendmail vs. postfix, mimedefang vs. 
mailscanner) on much slower machine (but also, with much less users).

> /var/spool/mail/               14.800

Cyrus uses /var/spool/imap for mail storage.  So you might want to 
change the above to /var/spool/imap.

> The server will serve around 2000 students, but only 80(maybe 100)
> concurrent at time. I would like to make a very basic installation,
> 'cause as you can see, I am with a very low hardware resources. This
> host will be mail dedicated.

For the number of users, you'd probably want to consider dual-CPU 
system.  Also, unless you impose mailbox quotas (trivial to do with 
cyrus), you'll run out of disk space relatively fast (for that number of 
users).  Remember, with IMAP, mail is stored on the server.  Disk is 
cheap nowdays, get yourself two 250MB drives ($150-200 investment) and 
make software RAID-1.  You'll get both capacity and redundancy.