Hosting our own mail server

[geraldhum]

Hi

sorry i don't know where else to post this.

we are currently having problems with our hosting supplier and my boss asked me to find out how do we host our own sever.

So here i am.

What will the requierments and everything i need be?

Will it be better to have our own server and just host it by "IS" Therefore we can connect to it for problem sovling via "SSH"

If he wants to host the mail server here at the office will be need a 4MB line and uncapped adsl or will our 3gb iburst cap be enough. I haven't used linux in ages so before i go that route I would like to have the server as a windows based server unless that will be to expensive then linux it is.

Regards
gerald humphreys

[hamin_aus]

Firstly, you need a server with a static IP address.
If you want it hosted on your premises, I suggest getting a diginet line between your office and an ISP like "IS". Using 3G and ADSL is a bit dicy IMO.

Secondly, a good POP3 application for Windows costs money. Exchange does not even cost money, you have to promise M$ your first born....
We use an application called MerakMail by IceWarp and I'd recommend it.
I'm sure there are free apps, but I have never tried them.
I am sure some Linux people can recommend good 'nix apps if you don't want to do Windows.

But hosting a sever in your office is not really on if you are a small business, rather pay for hosting off-site and administer the server remotely. Most hosting companies will sell you space in their rack or rent out a physical server or virtual machine to you for a monthly fee - a much safer option.

Just out of curiosity, what are the problems you were having with your provider?
Also how many mailboxes would you want and what is the size of the data you will be mailing?
Getting POP mail hosting is really cheap and generally reliable, you should just change providers. It does not sound like you guys are equipped to to handle you own mail hosting, no offence intended.

[freeloader]

4MB uncapped ADSL just for a mail server? We host one at my work off a 512kb uncapped for nearly hundred people with no slowness at all so thats way over whats needed.

Requirements for hosting at your company will probably be:

-DNS records. You will need someone to register your companys email address (eg: info@example.co.za) . And point to a static ip address ( you CAN run it off a DDNS system but i dont recommend it)
-Depending on your needs (eg: remote email access outside the company etc) you would need an internet account thats got a static ip.
-Personally for your actual mailserver i would go linux. No setup costs other than buying the computer it will run on and no maintainace or licensing costs.
-Spam filtering. We tryed and failed to get a decent spam filter going. So we currently use the spam filtering service from IS. Really cheap and works well.

[geraldhum]

thanks for the reply

We are currently with iburst and our pop server is constantly down at least once a day. You right this is a small company as we are only 5 employees.

We only need about 100mb/mail box as all the mail is downloaded via outlook and deleted off the pop server and no one gets 100mb of email in one night.

We email daily as well as recieve alot of emails from our supplier.

Our E-Mail server comes with our Iburst contract so we cant just exacly terminate it.

If we should terminate our contract what would be the best route to go(Not wireless)thinking of adsl.

My last post i think i said we have a 3gb cap. I was wrong we have a 5gb and if we chose to go adsl a 10gb cap will be cheaper than the 5gb iburst.

[freeloader]

We email daily as well as recieve alot of emails from our supplier.

We do about 1GB a day probably in total.

If we should terminate our contract what would be the best route to go(Not wireless)thinking of adsl.

My last post i think i said we have a 3gb cap. I was wrong we have a 5gb and if we chose to go adsl a 10gb cap will be cheaper than the 5gb iburst.

Webafrica is one of the cheapest for ADSL. 10GB is R490 and then its just which speed telkom line you want (webafrica doesn't limit speed so you can get 384kb, 512kb, 1M or 4M). 5Gb cap is R290. BUT they dont offer a fixed ip. For that you would have to look around and its more costly.

[DeathStrike]

y not just get a dedicated server from hetzner or the like and use that? our company has two. i think they cost bout 1k each a month... or mayb 2k. can't remember.