[Cialug] E-mail

[Daniel A. Ramaley]

Thanks everyone for the discussion so far. I don't like administering 
e-mail. I'm happy to do it at work where i'm paid for it, but don't 
like doing it on my own network for free. I set up my current system 
about 10 years ago and have migrated it to different hardware a couple 
times as old equipment died but not really changed the software. (I'd 
be rather embarrassed to admit what version of OpenBSD the mail server 
runs...)

Google Apps is tempting. I have a couple friends using it for their 
domains who seem to like it. But e-mail is something i dislike messing 
with enough that if i make any changes, i don't want to have to really 
think about it again for another 10 years. Will Google Apps still exist 
as it does now in 10 years? I don't know, but i doubt it since 10 years 
is such a long time in the computer industry. Did Google even exist 10 
years ago? I'm also not sure i'd like to entrust my mail to a 
commercial service that is offered for free since at any time in the 
future they could pull the plug on it and i'd have to scramble to set 
up something else.

If i continue running my own, i'll probably go with some sort of Postfix 
setup. I've used qmail until now because at the time i set it up it 
seemed the best choice; others (including the venerable sendmail) 
either had a poor security history or were still early in development. 
These days i'd probably go with Postfix since it is the MTA i'm most 
easily able to wrangle into submission these days, having configured it 
on various machines at work.

I like the idea of renting a virtual host somewhere outside my 
apartment. I've been considering that anyway. I got engaged recently, 
and the fiancée is not a techie person like me so i doubt she'll 
appreciate the rack of servers i keep in my apartment as much as i do. 
Becoming weary of the noise, over the last few years i've migrated most 
of the servers to modern low-power computers anyway. After the 
migration i saw a reduction in both computer noise and power bills. But 
if i could kill the remaining computer noise completely, get back the 
space my server rack takes up, and lower the power bills even more, 
that just might just be worth the monthly cost of renting a virtual 
machine somewhere or even a dedicated co-located machine. And as Tom 
pointed out, services located outside the apartment are far less prone 
to outages due to things such as moving, which i'll probably have to 
deal with somewhat soon-ish as another consequence of engagement.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Ramaley                            Dial Center 118, Drake University
Network Programmer/Analyst             2407 Carpenter Ave
+1 515 271-4540                        Des Moines IA 50311 USA