Slightly OT: virtual hosting

[Vlad Mazek]

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Looks like frontierhomemortgage.com is a sendmail/qpopper box. Given all
your alternatives, changing the entire email system from the ground up
sounds like a major overkill, compared to maintaining several flat ascii
files by hand, especially in an environment with $0 budget where user
count is not going to increase all that much.

Leave sendmail/mailscanner as is and research dovecot a little. It will
allow you to use a custom authentication (ie, their email address can be
their username, and they can keep accesing the same mbox file that
sendmail or procmail currently deliver mail to).

Given all the tradeoffs, that seems like the least amount of work.

-Vlad Mazek
ExchangeDefender

Jason Balicki wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>First of all, if this is too OT, let me know (preferably
>with a suggestion as where to take the discussion --
>this is the only list I know of that has a good size
>community of mail admins that use all sorts of different
>MTA setups.)
>
>I've been a faithful MailScanner user for years now,
>and I love the package.
>
>However, I'm trying to consolidate several separate
>mail servers that I maintain under one roof (so
>to speak) and it seems like every virtual hosting
>solution has severe drawbacks.
>
>The options are limitless, but here's what I've
>considered so far:
>
>Webmin+Virtualmin (and the associated mailscanner
>webmin component).  I like this, and I've had it
>partially set up, but the one drawback that I see
>is that I have to give people funky pop/imap logins,
>and for some reason I find that quite distasteful.
>
>The same as above, but without Webmin.  Same
>drawbacks, plus I'd have to maintain the
>virtual user table by hand.
>
>qmail+vpopper+clamav+spamassassin.  This would allow
>me to use sane usernames, but 1) I've heard it's
>a pain to get running (small, but my frustration
>level is high enough now :) and 2) I'd be ditching
>MailScanner.  I know I could run Mailscanner on
>a separate box, but I'd be doubling the number
>of servers needed, plus I don't know if I could
>get the MailScanner box to drop unknown users.
>
>Well, that's about all I've seriously considered
>at this point.
>
>I'd like to continue to use MailScanner, as I like
>the all in one anti-spam and anti-virus capabilities,
>as well as the wonderful community, but it looks like
>I may have to switch out, and I'm not liking that
>possibility.
>
>Some other considerations:
>
>1) someone else may have to administer this at some
>point.
>
>2) I may add more domains, especially since I'll have
>the infrastructure in place.
>
>3) I have absolutely no budget right now.  I have
>a few spare desktops that I can sacrifice to be
>servers, but new hardware is not an option right
>now.  (My boss won't even let me convert the 5
>desktop-cased servers into rackmounts right now,
>even though I have a nearly empty relay-rack.)
>
>If you're running a virtual hosting solution, what
>are you using?  Are you happy with it?  If not what
>would you change?  Is there anything I've missed
>that I should be considering?
>
>Also, I'm most familiar with Linux based solutions,
>but I'm not opposed to *bsd.  However, I've tried
>to standardize on WhiteBox Enterprise Linux (where
>I can) to make things easy on myself.
>
>Thanks a lot for any input.  If you think this isn't
>a good discussion for the list, please email me
>directly.
>
>--J(K)
>
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>
>
>

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