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Sure, but it can still be quite daunting if you're not much of a sysadmin. I'm a web developer primarily and though I feel confident setting up a basic web serv

by pluma 12y ago

Sure, but it can still be quite daunting if you're not much of a sysadmin. I'm a web developer primarily and though I feel confident setting up a basic web server and SSH, I'm not even entirely sure what software I need or should use (when there are multiple alternatives) to set up a fully working e-mail server. Add to that messing with cryptic configuration files while reading about the dangers of doing it wrong and the general impression is that you shouldn't be touching any of it unless you fully understand it all. As far as beginner friendliness goes, it's a bit like desktop Linux was ten years ago.

bad_user 12y ago
> As far as beginner friendliness goes, it's a bit like desktop Linux was ten years ago No, it's much worse. 10 years ago you could get a desktop Linux up and running, the experience wasn't that much different from today and even if you screwed up, you could always reinstall it from scratch, but with email screw-ups may mean getting your domain blacklisted and good luck fixing it afterwards.
e12e 12y ago
There is a bit of a documentation vacuum. We (Linux users, admins and developers) could learn a lot from freebsd and openbsd here. Something like https://packages.debian.org/wheezy/task-mail-server https://packages.debian.org/wheezy/task-mail-server gets you on your way (maybe too far, actually -- you probably don't want/need all that for an initial setup) -- but certificate requests, and certificates is still too hard. https://packages.debian.org/wheezy/ssl-cert https://packages.debian.org/wheezy/ssl-cert helps, but afaik, nothing automagically does the right thing, yet (install certifate under /etc/ssl and the private key under /etc/ssl/private and symlink under /etc/exim/cert.{key|der or whatever} and ditto for other daemons that share the same cert/key. And then there is tuning to disable plain text for most of those services. So, yeah, it's still too complex. I really don't understand everyone that are panicked about getting your domain blacklisted -- yes, if you send spam you'll be blacklisted. Yes, if you set up an open relay, that's bad. But you really have to work pretty hard to set up an open relay these days.
ForHackernews 12y ago
iRedMail is pretty nice for helping you get a mail server set up easily with sane defaults: http://www.iredmail.org/features.html http://www.iredmail.org/features.html

by pluma 12y ago

bad_user 12y ago

> As far as beginner friendliness goes, it's a bit like desktop Linux was ten years ago No, it's much worse. 10 years ago you could get a desktop Linux up and running, the experience wasn't that much different from today and even if you screwed up, you could always reinstall it from scratch, but with email screw-ups may mean getting your domain blacklisted and good luck fixing it afterwards.

e12e 12y ago

There is a bit of a documentation vacuum. We (Linux users, admins and developers) could learn a lot from freebsd and openbsd here. Something like https://packages.debian.org/wheezy/task-mail-server https://packages.debian.org/wheezy/task-mail-server gets you on your way (maybe too far, actually -- you probably don't want/need all that for an initial setup) -- but certificate requests, and certificates is still too hard. https://packages.debian.org/wheezy/ssl-cert https://packages.debian.org/wheezy/ssl-cert helps, but afaik, nothing automagically does the right thing, yet (install certifate under /etc/ssl and the private key under /etc/ssl/private and symlink under /etc/exim/cert.{key|der or whatever} and ditto for other daemons that share the same cert/key. And then there is tuning to disable plain text for most of those services. So, yeah, it's still too complex. I really don't understand everyone that are panicked about getting your domain blacklisted -- yes, if you send spam you'll be blacklisted. Yes, if you set up an open relay, that's bad. But you really have to work pretty hard to set up an open relay these days.

ForHackernews 12y ago

iRedMail is pretty nice for helping you get a mail server set up easily with sane defaults: http://www.iredmail.org/features.html http://www.iredmail.org/features.html