[brlug-general] Linux based mail server

[Paul Rushing]

> Would anyone please suggest a decent and manageable Linux based mail
> server?  I would greatly appreciate your input or personal experience
> story.  Not to inflict a hell fire upon myself, but, the question is still
> valid: with Microsoft selling their standard version of Exchange 2003 for
> $297 plus 1.70 per client, why would I look somewhere else?

I've been using Redhat for an intranet email server for 4 years.   187 
users currently.  1496 messages yesterday.   Why would I want to pay 
297$ + 187 * 1.7 = $614.9 for what I've currently paid $0 for?  (not to 
mention the OS cost you have left out of your question)  I have pop3, 
imap, pop3s, imaps, shared address books, webmail (horde / imp over 
ssl),  site-wide virus scanning and spam scoring.  The email service 
started on an old box and after 2 years I transferred it to a new 
server, it took about 5 minutes to copy the user accounts and mail 
spools from the old server to the new.  I have users that are only 
allowed internal site email and other users that have access to send 
internet email.

Adding and removing users is handled thru a restricted webmin interface.

Calendaring is not a big concern, and we have a web based calendar for 
the few people that need it. ( on the same box )

The ROI (Return On Investment) is very high for this box, the TCO would 
be impossible to calculate at this time, because I haven't tracked my 
time.  Although, my impression is that I've spent very little time on 
the email configs since it was setup.   I've had no downtime attributed 
to the email service.  System downtime is minimal, and mainly consists 
of a reboot occasionally for a kernel patch or hard drive installs.