[Mailman-Users] Re: decision help

[Steve Arnold]

  Don Cooley wrote:

[snip]
> 
> Looks like I have three options:
> 1.  Commercial Hosting

Expensive but they should have responsive tech support.  Only do 
this if you can afford it, and make sure they have 24/7 response to 
problems.  I would tend to do it myself (wait a minute - I do!)  See 
below.

> 2.  Do-it-yourself

Since you have DSL, if you're willing to try running it yourself, 
this is the best option (IMHO).  Yes, you can do it.  You mentioned 
RedHat, which is pretty easy to install and configure.  Yes it'll 
take some time to learn the ins and outs, but it's worth the 
investment.  This option puts you in control, but it also makes you 
responsible.  You don't need fast hardware; I have an old P-120 with 
40 megs of ram and an 18 gig SCSI drive, on an inexpensive UPS, 
connected to my DSL circuit.  It's got 305 days of uptime now (since 
the last PG&E power outage that went 6 hours) and almost 2 years 
before that.  It runs postfix, mailman, bind, ntp, apache, samba, 
cups, ipchains, etc, and it handles it just fine (your email load is 
minimal, in spite of the other guy's comment).

Take advantage of the one guy's offer, and have him help you with 
the initial setup and security configuration on-site.  I can help 
you with the rest (but you have to be willing to do some homework 
yourself).  I can also point you to a nice discount hardware site if 
you need parts.

You can buy your own domain name for less than $10/year, and that 
should be your total cost (except for the hardware and DSL circuit). 
  There are other low cost (and even free) domain name options as 
well.  You shouldn't need to route mail through your ISP.

I'll actually be there next month for the LinuxWorld conference, so 
we can meet up if you like.

Go ahead, take the plunge.  You'll be glad you did.

> 3.  sympathetic sysadmin

This might seem like a good idea at first, but what happens when 
that person leaves, or new management comes in?  You'd have no 
control (and no leverage).

Let me know if you need any help (feel free to contact me directly).

Steve

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Steve Arnold                   http://arnolds.dhs.org:8080
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