Creating a "mail gateway"

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 04:55:48PM -0400, Ian Petersen wrote:
> I think you're not getting my point.
> 
> My dad wants an Exchange server running in his house handling his
> email (and whatever else Exchange handles).  I've told him a number of
> times that there are a myriad of other solutions that would be easier,
> would not require working around Rogers, would be cheaper, might be
> more secure, would provide more features, would provide better uptime,
> etc.  He's not interested.  You know why?  Because none of the other
> solutions involve running an Exchange server in his basement, handling
> his email locally.  So thank you.  GAFYD is a _great_ idea.  It's not
> going to work for my dad.

Reminds me a bit of the system administrator that started at a company I
once worked at shortly after I had left there.  One of his firsts ideas
was to replace a linux sendmail server that had worked perfectly for
years with an exchange server because he didn't know how to manage
sendmail or linux.  Well he didn't know how to manage exchange either
and ended up breaking all email access for the company for quite a
while, and was eventually fired.  It's rather embarasing when a customer
calls up a company to tell them what configuration error they have on
their mail server causing them to be unable to receive emails.  It is
annoying when the support email address doesn't work and you have a
question to ask.  Some people simply have no business running a mail
server, especially exchange.

> Ideally, he'd have an ISP that doesn't muck about with his traffic,
> and he'd run Exchange with no intermediaries besides a good firewall.
> Ideally, he'd probably be on TekSavvy and this discussion wouldn't
> have to happen.  In real life, he's stuck with a pain-in-the-ass for
> an ISP and the Linux VPS is just a work around that I think might
> solve his problem.  It's a _Linux_ VPS because I happen to think I'll
> be able to configure it as a router and Linux VPSs seem to be cheaper
> than the alternatives.  The only guiding principle here is that
> Exchange should be the mail server and Rogers shouldn't have to care.
> Any solution that permits that arrangement is something we'd consider.
>  Switching to a non-Exchange mail server running outside of my dad's
> house is not something we'll consider.

Well it sounds a lot like that is pretty much what you will have to do,
at least as an external mail forwarder.  Exchange can still be the local
interface and the place that stores email though.

For that matter at work we run exchange (main server, and important to
the blackberry addicts) as well as a postfix server and a baracuda spam
filter, and they all get along fine each doing their thing and
exchanging mail with each other as needed.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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