RUNNING A MAIL SERVER -- SUMMARY

[Andrew J. Mutch]

Once again -- the list comes through with a lot of great suggestions.  I
have summarized the responses and it includes products not only for NT but
some suggestion for using UNIX-based solutions and Macs.

Thanks Again!

Andrew Mutch 
Northville District Library
Northville, MI

And, in no particular order .....

We ended up going with Exchange Server.  This is an expensive solution
and require MS Outlook clients to achieve full capabilities, but since
we are finding ways to leverage it's groupware capabilities, the extra
cost was probably worth it.  Your mileage may vary.

If you just want basic SMTP/POP and maybe IMAP services, you might try
http://www.tucows.com to see if they have some free/shareware solutions
or demonstrations of less expensive commercial solutions.  Then you can
standardize on any mail client that supports these standard protocols.

Good Luck!

David

David S. Vaughan, Systems Librarian

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We use the EMWAC Internet Mail Services software. It's free.
<http://emwac.ed.ac.uk/html/internet_toolchest/ims/ims.htm>

Mike Mitchel

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We run Post.Office from Software.Com.  I've been using it for 2 years now,
and I love it.  It runs great under NT 4.0.  It's a POP3 based system, so
you can use shareware/freeware clients from Eudora, Netscape, Microsoft,
etc to access it.  Looks like the current price is $495 for up to 100
users.  Tech support costs extra, but I've never had to use it.  Admin is
all web based.  It will also do mailing lists, in case you want to set one
up (I have, it's easy, they work very well).

http://www.software.com/ 

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I've heard fairly good things about GroupWise, if you happen to be in a
Novell environment already.  Frankly, though, I personally feel it's best
to stick with the long-standing Best Way to do anything Internet related,
and use a Unix variant.  The obvious choice here (for both web service and
email, and you can host them on the same box) is Linux.  Red Hat makes a
lovely distribution, which will install happily on a spare 486 or better,
and will even provide a running Apache web server and sendmail deamon
right
out of the box.  While you can download the installation free from
www.redhat.com, you can also get it on CD at most computer stores (our
local Best Buy started carrying it nearly a year ago...)

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...If you're already a devout Linux administrator...Sendmail has its
problems (mostly security-related, but
frankly there is some advantage using an O/S where the security holes are
understood and documented...  See www.cert.org for more info) but it's
cheap (well, the software is free, and will happily run on a moldly old
386) and probably far and away the most common mail service in use today
(not too long ago, it was about the only mail service in use...)

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I am also running an NT but on an Alpha.  The Email program, PostOffice,
I am
using is also available for Intel NT 4.0 and can be downloaded from
http://www.software.com
They have newer versions one called InterMail but I know the PostOffice
program is free to use for up to about 5 or 10 users and 1 or 2 lists.  It
uses a WEB Interface and I felt it was very user friendly for setup and
maintaining.  I think its only available in POP3.  It looks like I might
be in
trouble that they may have stopped supporting the Alpha NT.

Thomas 

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  Hi! If you download the free upgrade for NT Server from Microsoft, the
   Option Pack, you will receive, as part of the package, a free Internet
Mail
   server. I'm not using it, since it won't benefit my library at my
   institution, but it looks fairly full featured.
      The download is fairly large, 40-50+ MB, but it does include a
number of
   worthwhile upgrades to NT Server.

   --Richard


=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
    Richard M. Page 

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Netscape provides free of charge its mail server to public libraries.
It's
a very good server and not terribly difficult to set up (from what I
understand).  Look at the netscape site for details.

http://live.netscape.com/comprod/server_central/edu_drive.html 
=======================================================
Gary Giannelli  

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If you have a Macintosh there is a free mail server EIMS.  In not sure how
well it will go is you push it to tens of thousands of accounts but a few
thousand should be fine (depends on the machine). There are also free list
serving packages which will work with it (Autoshare and Macjordomo).

Tony     

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For security reasons I'd recommend getting a 486 box w/ about 32-64 megs
ram and like a 4 gig drive.  That should be enough to run Linux or
FreeBSD.  I suggest the second.  Its quite secure and also stable.

Vladislav Davidzon

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I have been looking at operating a Listserv also and in doing research I
have found a wide range of options.  If you are running WinNT you could go
to http://serverwatch.internet.com/listservers.html
and another one that I think we will be using is Free and has a reputation
of being very good and easy to mannage.
http://www.pegasus.usa.com/  The Listserv software that they provide is
Mustang and it is free for non proffit's.

Roy Lewis rcl at onramp.net  

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