[Gllug] Getting technical about email

[Bruce Richardson]

On Thu, Nov 09, 2006 at 04:42:56PM +0000, John wrote:
> It occurs to me that I'm now the state where it would be simpler to set
> up an email server and have a single email system across my home
> network.
> 
> What I need is to understand how an email server would work. I've
> really got to know this before I can design the optimal setup.
> 
> So any recommendations as to what I should read (books, web pages,
> whatever)? Note that I'm not asking for software recommendations
> (although feel free to name names if it makes a point) but rather for
> help in understanding how things work and what I need to do,

I don't know of any reference material that gives a useful overview of
mail systems as a whole and good books on even the individual components
and technologies that can be used to build a mail system are hard to
find.  You might have better luck finding somebody with a reasonable
clue who is also good at both explaining things and listening and have a
conversation with them.  Of course, they can be at least as hard to find
as a useful reference book.

I do, though, have a feeling that you might be trying this the wrong way
round.  There are several open source offerings that offer an entire
mail-system-in-a-box that are based entirely on free software and open
standards.  You could set up a central e-mail system using one of those
and then take the time to learn how each of the components works.  As
you learned more, you would then have the option of replacing individual
components.  Or you could just leave it alone, if it works fine and you
have no compelling reason to become an e-mail guru.

I think this might be a better strategy for two reasons:

1.  It would give you a working solution much earlier.
2.  You may find it easier to learn from a working system than purely
from study.

One product that I know of that might be suitable is SME Server
(http://www.contribs.org/).  At one point I would have recommended the
SuSE mail server product but I think that died when Novell bought them.
I'm sure other people on the list can make recommendations.

-- 
Bruce

Remember you're a Womble.
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