Slightly OT: virtual hosting

[Jason Balicki]

Vlad Mazek <> wrote:
> Looks like frontierhomemortgage.com is a sendmail/qpopper box. Given

It's not.  Bear with me here:  frontierhomemortgage.com runs a server
side package called Bynari Insight, which is made up of Cyrus+Postfix+
OpenLDAP+ some glue, which allows me to integrate with Bynari's client
side, which is a MAPI plugin for outlook that allows me to store
native Outlook messages in that IMAP store -- effectively fully
replacing Exchange capabilities.  The problem looming is that Bynari
took my advice and has integrated SpamAssassin and ClamAV into
their product, however they did not integrate MailScanner, as they
bought into the whole "postfix doesn't work with MailScanner" (for
the record: I protested.  Loudly.)  The final package doesn't allow
for lovely things like rulesets and the like.  It also doesn't allow
for other AV products, rendering my Sophos license useless for
that particular application.  Before anyone says anything:  at the
time this was purchased, this was the only thing available to do
what needed to be done to satisfy my users.  I am happy with the
product, even though I do wish there was a bit more flexibility.

That, however, is the least of my worries.  I have several other
domains, tangently related to Frontier and otherwise (such
as my domain I use at home, plus I run several domains for
other clients) all of which use MailScanner+ClamAV, plus some
run Sophos.  All of which currently reside on separate servers,
with separate MailScanner installs, etc...

I'd like to virtual host some domains, and forward
frontierhomemortgage.com from the virtual host/MailScanner box
to the existing mail server,  allowing me to upgrade to the latest
version of Insight and still use MailScanner.

Also, much of this is motivated by the fact that my wife and I have
become dependant on my local domain, but I'm paying $60/mo for
a 608k/128k crappy DSL line to host it on (low, low volume) but
I can get 3.2Mb/512k cable internet for $40/mo.  My boss
doesn't care if I host the box at Frontier, but if I'm going
to go through the trouble of doing that, I may as well make
it capable of making us a little bit of money.  We're not
looking to be a full fledged hosting company, but you know
how it goes:  the bosses friend owns a business, complains
about hosting... and it ends up in my lap.  And yet, still
no budget... :(

> 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.

I should have been more clear in the first email, but I didn't
want to cloud it up with minutia.  I guess I could have spent
a little more time crafting it.  Sorry.

I won't be changing the existing Frontier box much, but I'd
like to put a box in front of it that can virtual host domains
OTHER than Frontier, yet still provide scanning for the hosted
domains AND Frontier.  Also, I expect the load to increase,
plus (another consideration) I'd like to be able to have the
individual domain owners administer as much of their stuff
as possible.

I've been given a lot of good suggestions, and if anyone
is interested I can post either my progress through setting
this up, or when I'm done (done?) I can post a summary of
what I ended up with.

> Leave sendmail/MailScanner as is and research dovecot a little. It

I will look into dovecot.  Thanks for the suggestion, that's
something I've not heard of.

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

I'm not afraid of the work.  I'd rather work a lot now and have
things be easier later than continue fighting things as they
are.

--J(K)

PS:  I also wanted to say that Frontier is not one of the scummy
spamming mortgage companies.  All of our business is either local
to St. Louis (or Las Vegas -- we had someone move out there) and
is generated via radio ads, phone book or word of mouth.  We are
a no-spamming-zone.

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