I'm really doing it for the learning part of it. If Bellsouth's smtp server is down when I need to send an email, I just turn to either yahoo, or hotmail, and write and send my email from there. The machine that I'm using is a Dell Poweredge 2300 with 3 9.1 scuzzy hard drives. The machine was givien to me, and it's somewhat outdated. All it has in it is a 500mghrtz single processor, so if I do something wrong and the machine implodes, I'm not out any cash. Thanks for your concern. Jimmy On Mon, 2005-06-20 at 00:03 -0400, Steve Huff wrote: > On Jun 19, 2005, at 11:49 PM, Jimmy Bradley wrote: > > > I agree, what I'm trying to do is overkill, but I'm doing it for a > > couple of reasons. First for the learning experience, second, > > bellsouth > > has problems with their smtp server at the worst times, and being able > > to send and receive email is a critical part of my job. You're > > right. I > > know nothing about administering a server of anykind, this would be a > > good time to learn. I guess one question I need to ask now is, how > > do I > > go about getting an unused domain name for my machine? Also, bellsouth > > said that I would not be violating my service agreement. > > first off, to find an unused domain name, go to just about any > registrar's home page (i've had good experiences with GoDaddy (http:// > www.godaddy.com), but there are other good registrars as well) and > you should find domain search functionality. if you don't have a > fixed IP address, you may find a service such as ZoneEdit (http:// > www.zoneedit.com) useful. > > let's take a step back, though: are you undertaking this project > because you need better mail service than bellsouth provides, or are > you doing it to learn how to administer a mail server? i would > suggest you pick one or the other: if you're learning, you will > undoubtedly make mistakes, and that needs to be OK. if you're > depending on this mail server to do your job, i'd recommend against > using it for your learning experiences, because if it's mission- > critical then when you screw up you're hurting yourself. > > if you really want to learn nuts and bolts, stay away from turnkey or > prepackaged solutions; build the various parts yourself, from source, > and read all the documentation. if you want something that'll just > work, go with qmailtoaster; however, bear in mind that it may be > somewhat opaque or confusing if you want to set up anything that > differs from the default configuration. > > -steve > > --- > If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an > improbable fiction. - Fabian, Twelfth Night, III,v > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS@xxxxxxxxxx > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos