Re: Recommend site for debian lan topology
On Wednesday 09 July 2003 17:27, Jesse Meyer wrote:
> On Tue, 08 Jul 2003, Stephen Patterson wrote:
> > On Mon, 07 Jul 2003 22:30:28 +0200, lists1 wrote:
> > > Can anyone recommend a non-registration site that clearly explains what
> > > services normally run on a small company lan? Say 25-100 users or so.
> > >
> > > OpenLdap is for...same?
> > > Bind for dns
> > > DHCP/static
> > > NTP
> > > Samba for windows file/print
> > > What else?
> >
> > I'm surprised you've missed out email, many people here would suggest
> > exim as an SMTP server, and you'd need courier/cyrus for IMAP and/or
> > POP3 mailboxes (unless you can cope with an NFS exported mail spool
> > and all your clients are linux).
>
> You *might* want to look into a web based email system as well.
> Squirrelmail/Courier-Imap is a combo I've used before, and its done
> very well by me. That way, you have one centralized email backup, and
> you only have to worry about one email app (Squirrelmail) instead of
> many.
>
I specifically left out the mail server because I'm not sure what I'm going to
do with that. One of the local lists I'm on (and from reading elsewhere) the
recommendation is postfix. Qmail seems to be "easy" to configure when using
debian (which is what I'll be using), according to others. And there's a
third that's supposed to be easy(or easier) which I can't remember right now.
I looked at the Squirrelmail site a while ago, at the documentation and other
items iirc, and I wasn't impressed. One of the requirements going forward
will be a webmail feature.
I'm not concerned with viruses. I have the luxury of being able to set up two
lans both of which will not have windows clients or servers on them. For one
of the lans, a database file spanning a number of years is being ported to
MySQL from a proprietary database by someone else. After that, I'll have to
set up a small network for the users so they can access and use the database.
Most of the other services I already know or can figure out.
Samba was mentioned because I want to be ready if it crops up. For my
expected installs, I don't see anyone paying for virus protection, so any
anti-virus solution would have to be free, or the windows users wouldn't be
put on the same lan, and then virus protection wouldn't fall within my scope
of work or responsibilities.
Jabber is highly unlikely to be needed, Squid is out for the current
applications because the users won't be accessing the 'net. Just the email
server, the servers for patches, myself with ssh for maintenance, etc.
ftp, I wouldn't try putting ftp on my worst enemy's lan. Spamassassin or
other similar I'll have to try once I get the hang of running the mail
server. VNC is not needed. rDesktop, I'll have to look at it again, don't
remember what it is right now.
Thanks for all of the suggestions though.
For Debian, which will be woody on the mail/dns/ntp server, and a mix of
woody/testing/unstable (basically the knoppix install, plus some
customization) for the desktops and internal servers, what would be the
easiest combination in terms of setup and administration for regular
email/imap/webmail?
If there was no external email server, and no emails entering or leaving the
lan from outside, what is the transport and delivery method that is used on
an internal lan? Let' say that for checking isp mail, kmail in kde is used.
Now let's say, there is no more internet connection. Is kmail (or a similar
app) still used (as the mail client) to send and receive emails within the
same office? What is transporting the email? Is a mail server still
required for email that never leaves the lan? How is this normally
accomplished? Is the same mail server that is exposed to the internet used
to transport inter-office email? Would two email servers be required to
firewall inter-office email from the outside email?
My previous experience has been with suse. With that, I disabled sendmail, as
I didn't know how to run it, and didn't want to try. So to send email to
another box on the lan, I would end up sending the email through my isp, then
picking up that email on the other box by logging into the other box, firing
up the email client (kmail), and downloading the email from my isp. But even
though I disabled sendmail, I suspect that for logged messages that were sent
from the system to root for example, the system automatically started
sendmail, sent the messages to root and/or var/log/*, then shut down (or
remained running?). Is this correct?
How to send messages on lan, without going through isp. Must an email server
be running to do this?
A lot of questions, but I want to make sure you know where my thinking is
going on this.
tia.
Bing.
> Other unusual ideas include a Jabber server, for secure, local IMs.
>
> Back to the relm of the mundane, have you thought about:
>
> Squid - www proxy.
> Ftp - insecure, but it has its uses.
> Spamassassin - tag spamlike messages [ I recommend redoing the
> header and adding a 'PROBABLE SPAM:' tag to
> the subject, instead of deleting.]
> VNC/rDesktop - Not really a 'service', but something you might want
> running on a few or all of the machines.
> Antivirus - If you are receiving outside email, and your users
> can download it to a win32 platform, you need
> an antivirus solution. The AV companies usually
> sell a (pricy) large company edition, which
> is set up as a server/client system - one
> machine grabs all the updates, and distributes
> them to the rest. You might need a win32
> machine to run the server, but it could be worth
> it. Else, if you are on a budget, you could try
> proxying virus updates through squid, but you
> will not get centralized reporting that way.
> I cannot say it often enough: If you are using
> windows, you need AV on each machine.
>
> ~ Jesse Meyer
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