Hi all. First time at trying to 'handle' mail (ever) and starting to think about my plan of attack... right now all of my mail to my domains I run is simply being forwarded by zoneedit...

OK, trying to get my head around handling mail for a new domain that I am now running and will be hosting on a linode, any advice welcome!

Basic setup. I have three linodes, all in different data centers. A production linode, a development linode and a third that I use to serve content like images, .js, .css, etc.

I would like to avoid installing anything other than what is necessary on my production linode, so I am hoping I can do the following:

1) Domain is with goDaddy, point the domain, domain.com, at linode nameservers. Define needed sub-domains, etc in linode DNS manager, including mail.domain.com. While domain.com and www.domain.com point at 111.111.111.111, my production linode, I will point mail.domain.com at 222.222.222.222 my 'content' linode install.

2) In DNS manager, point mx records for domain.com at mail.domain.com.

3) On 'content' linode, install and configure postfix to handle incoming mail, smtp, pop, etc.

Does this basic setup seem to make sense? In a nutshell, all mail for @domain.com will be handled by the 'content' server, while http requests go to production linode.

Thanks, and appreciate any advice if I am missing something very basic as I start into this.

Paul

Looks fine, as long as you've got enough RAM left in your 'content' server to run postfix, dovecot/courier, spamassassin, antivirus, etc. If the server is just serving static content, I suppose you're running a lightweight web server on it... in which case there should be plenty of RAM left. Just double-check all the security parameters because nobody wants to be near a compromised mail server.

Honestly, I'd rather avoid running a mail-server at all, but I think given the needs of this new domain I am running, I may have to. Their needs include:

- a largish mail-list (currently using PHPList, gah, hate this app, any other suggestions?)
- some email accounts that forward to personal emails

Here's where I think I may need the mail server:
- private distribution lists (i.e. board@domain.com that then forwards to a bunch of the email accounts mentioned above that forward)

As I am rather new to this email game, would welcome any suggestions on avoiding the mail server completely... can one do private distribution lists without hosting your own and using something like mailman, etc?

Thanks!

For email forwarding and other "receiving" jobs, you can use Google Apps. It's free to set it up with your own domain, it comes with the Gmail interface as well as POP/IMAP/etc., with virtually unlimited storage, and you can set up email forwarding as well.

For sending a large number of emails, you can install Postfix and make it listen only on localhost. Then you can use any PHP mailing list software to send emails from that machine, but it will not receive any incoming mail/spam. Be very careful with your mailing list, though, or you could end up in a spam blacklist.

As long as the MX and SPF/SenderID records are properly set up in your DNS, you should be able to send emails from your server and receive from Google Apps without any problem.

Some alternatives to hosting things yourself...

If this is a technology-related group, you can have your mailing list hosted on FreeLists. Their web interface is reasonable, and as the name implies, it's free. However, your list would have a "something@freelists.org" address, not "something@domain.com".


You could have both of these handled by your registrar - most seem to throw in a good number of e-mail forwards with a domain registration. You'll have to manage membership on the private distribution list manually instead of each member doing it on his own, but this shouldn't be burdensome if changes don't happen frequently. Looks like instructions for doing this on GoDaddy are here (and they appear to support forwarding a single "blah@domain.com" address to multiple "real" addresses).