[wplug] Thoughts & Considerations for email server

[Kevin Squire]

I just got word late Friday that my "little" server for student email
will now be used for both student and parent email.  ($BIG_COMPANY just
tried to extort $70,000 from use to renew for the 2007-2008 year - CFO
not happy about it).

This is the first launch of (1) us offering student email and (2) us
hosting our own email server.  Since it is my responsibility, I am now a
bit more nervous then before.  We just upped the accounts from ~4,000 to
~7,000.

All the "bosses" know that I have never done anything at this scale, and
they know that this year will most likely be a "test run".  I have put
all my cards on the table, so I am not worried about my job, but I still
want to make it as successful as possible.  This is really the first
large scale deployment of OSS software, and I would really like to bring
more in in the future. 

Below I will list the hardware and software - I would love to hear any
feedback from those with some experience.  Any horror stories, any
tips/tricks, any thoughts/feelings about the setup, etc.  Any info would
be appreciated.

Server is a HP ProLiant ML310 G4 with 
  - Dual-Core 3050 2.13 GHz
  - 4GB ram
  - 4 HDs in a RAID 5 array - totaling ~700GB storage

Software is 
  - Debian Stable
  - Postfix/Courier with MySQL back-end
  - SquirrelMail web interface (this yr we will only support webUI, we
will not support other mail agents)
  - imapproxy for proformance issues
  - maildrop for quota and filtering
  - amavis for clamAV and SpamAssassin 
  - Probably a few other things I can't think of right now.


Using a basic ISP style setup.  I used this write-up as a basic guide -
http://workaround.org/articles/ispmail-sarge/ - did not follow it
exactly, but pretty close.

Again, I thank you for your time and your input.

-- 
http://gentgeen.homelinux.org

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