And so when I was fed up with the hosting-company-that-bought-the-shared-hosting-company's restrictions and costs and less support, I moved to Linode. So far, it's been a battle, but I'm slowly climbing the learning curve. Finally got apache, mysql and php running, and now I want to do email.

So it began. Did a few searches, read some linode documentation, did some more searches, read more stuff telling me to use different software, did more searches, tried to implement something that didn't work, so I searched and found something else and on and on and on. Net progress? Nothing.

So I need some help. It'll mean hand holding at times, but for the most part I only need someone to ask questions of and subsequently point me to the right documents. (I'm still kind of bitter that there isn't a CentOS email guide in the Linode library.)

If you haven't left already, my dream is a my Linode 512 webserver (with virtual hosting for 2 domains) also acting as a personal email server with reasonably good antispam measures, a secure webmail client (squirrelmail, roundcube, it doesn't matter), and a mailing list like mailman. If possible, I would like to have email addresses availabile on both domains. (Mailinglist only on one, for now.)

What I have now is a 32-bit CentOS 5.6 LAMP installation with 2 apache "VirtualHost"s and anything that is left after uninstallinga failed postfix and dovecot setup. I use Linode's DNS manager.

I feel kind of weird asking for tutoring, but I figure it doesn't hurt to ask.

Please?

I'm afraid I can't commit to providing the level of assistance you're asking for, but the following pages from the CentOS wiki are very helpful in setting up Postfix and greylisting:
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/postfix
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/postfix_restrictions
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/postgrey

Most people outsource their email.

Spam control is a never ending battle, and best left to someone else who can devote several full time people to managing it.

Google Apps seems to be the top choice, although now you only get 10 user accounts (not counting aliases) before you have to pay.

Beside better spam control (or less spam control headaches) it doesn't eat into your storage/bandwidth/memory. You can run Web & Email on a 512M, but it requires a lot of fine tuning to get everything to fit into that small of ram space (especially with any type of decent spam control).

@Vance: Thanks for the links anyway! I have tried the first one before, but my FQDN was screwed up then. Maybe it'll work this time.

@vonskippy: Oh no. Is it really that impossible? I am not anticipating a large userbase. In fact, aside from whatever is needed to run a mailinglist, there would only be one email account.
Even if I only get a 50% success rate filtering spam, I want to have had the experience of getting at least that far. I use email every day and know practically nothing what happens in the background.
I might be able to afford a 768, but that would be pushing it.

Not impossible, just a bit tricky. I have postfix, dovecot, amavisd, clamav and spamassassin on a 512, along with apache, mysql and php. You need to tune them all to use as little RAM as possible. On a busy mail server, clamav and spamassassin can chew up quite a bit of processor time as well, affecting response times for other applications -- less of a problem these days with the more powerful hosts. A busy web server and a busy mail server with all the trimmings won't be a good fit on a 512. I run a moderately busy mail server and a not-very busy-at-all web server on a 512 and it's fine.

_________________
/ Peter

At least for the near future, I am not going to have a busy mail server or a busy webserver - this is all just a pet project/learning experience. So I think it should work.

I am currently using Apache. Should I stick with that or switch to the less resource intensive Nginx? (I don't want another control panel like Cherokee's and lighttpd seems to have problems with memory management at the moment.) Would that make a significant enough difference to make this setup easier?

Apache is fine if you configure it correctly. The defaults in most distros assume you have several GB of RAM. There are lots of threads on this forum about tuning Apache for use with limited RAM.

_________________
/ Peter

Some of us were doing exactly that back on 80Meg UML linodes. 512Meg is plenty of ram for a MTA, spamassassin, amavis, greylisting daemon, spf daemon, p0f, mailstore processes, bind, apache, and mysql. Spam control isn't much of a headache, the few spam I get I use to train spamassassin's bayesian filter. The spamhaus DNSBL rocks.

Plus there is no way I'm trusting my data to a company that got rich by efficiently indexing other people's data!

Yes -- that as well.

_________________
/ Peter

Outsourcing may not be a bad idea. It's not just the anti-spam you have to manage. There are a lot of anti-spam measures that other email servers may or may not use so you have to setup your server to look like a 'good' server. SPF records (even if they are pointless, someone might use it) DKIM, and getting yourself on a decent whitelist or two.

"If you haven't left already, my dream is a my Linode 512 webserver (with virtual hosting for 2 domains) also acting as a personal email server with reasonably good antispam measures, a secure webmail client (squirrelmail, roundcube, it doesn't matter), and a mailing list like mailman. If possible, I would like to have email addresses availabile on both domains. (Mailinglist only on one, for now.) "

I'm not an email expert so I use Citadel, it does all of the above and was as easy as "sudo aptitude install citadel".

The admin interface is old school in appearance and there's this Rooms concept but all in all it's a decent package.

No ... it doesn't. All he has to do is install Citadel and set it up with Spamassasin. If you use Gmail you surrender all your email to the commercial purposes of Google which might be ok but do not make statements that all he is asking for is not possible. Do you work for Google?

@jebblue: I looked up Citadel and it seems like a great piece of software. That said, I think its a bit overkill for what I need to do, and I still wouldn't have that up close experience with email. I am very glad you pointed it out, though, because I can see a use for it in the future.

As for outsourcing, I don't want to do it if there is another option. I want the learning experience, and I value what little I have left that isn't Google's domain.

Since it doesn't seem like anyone has the time to spare to mentor, can anybody recommend a book or two?

EchoLynx,

If you want "up close experience with email" then i would suggest switching to Debian and following this guide:

http://www200.pair.com/mecham/spam/virtual3.html

I have followed the spamfiltering gateway guide on this site and it is very detailed. I have postfix and spamassasin books by orielly and others, but following the detailed information by Gary V helped me understand e-mail better than the books.

I have nothing against Centos (i have actually converted the spamfilter gateway guide to work on Centos), but if you want to go though the pain of learning e-mail (!) I think following one of these guides with Debian would be a good option.

jk

I have generally gotten the same response from IRC users. Debian/Ubuntu is more beginner friendly, apparently.

I have decided to convert to Debian because of this guide, the stuff in the Linode Library, and because 57% of linode users use Debian-based Ubuntu and 18% use Debian itself.

Time to re-do my LAMP stack.