emyrderfel.co.uk

Whilst superficially simple, email is actually a hideously complex affair. In an ideal world, we would have cloned the old server onto our new hardware, however as a system which was built before the firm had its own "geeks" in house, there was no documentation, installation disc or any other material which might facilitate a copy-cat setup. The next best option would be to set it up using the most mainstream software we could think of...

Such is the complexity of email that we filled our thought-process whiteboard, using multiple colours. The following photo doesn't include some of the software I thought we'd need to configure but later found we could do without. What remains not crossed out is actually a relatively normal mail server system.

Faced with the opportunity to build a new system in a sensible manner, my colleague and I decided that Linux was the natural answer to the dilemma of how to configure a fresh email system.

We do have a HP server running Windows 2003 Small Business Server which could run Exchange since we currently (under)use it as a glorified fileserver, except for the following facts:

• Neither of us have any experience of configuring Exchange.
• We have only slightly more experience of meddling with Windows Server operating systems.
• The windows network was using Workgroups rather than a Domain, even though we had a prime candidate for PDC. A sensible solution using Exchange would mean a lot of work meddling with other services.
• The RAID array in it had displayed some strange behaviour (leading to the server not booting following an automatic Windows Update, and a 3 hour fix).

Adding more responsibilities to the same server would not be a good idea.

Email is a cornerstone of modern business. Many use it as their preferred means of communication, although some activity continues to be duplicated or communicated solely on paper. There are many proven solutions to workplace email systems, from ISP-hosted accounts through own-domain systems on rented servers to in-house systems.

Recently I was forced to replace an existing system with a fresh solution due to hardware failure.

In the last year I have been a reasonably happy customer of Sub6 Ltd, better known under their trading banner Clook. Now that I am employed as a professional webgeek and general network monkey, I have access to servers upon which I can host almost and site I like and save myself two beer vouchers a month.

I have recently spent many hours learning to use Hugin, a photo-stitching application for Linux. It is less automated than some similar apps for Windows, but at least it costs me nothing. Above is one of my most successful efforts, a view of Cardiff Bay taken from the southern end of the barrage.