Glese Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 I am intending to build my own email service and I am wondering if you guys have any recommendations? I am planning to use Nginx with the eAcclerator functionality as the server application. I have read up a bit in the PHP documentation and found out that for example the mail function is not really suited for bigger volumes. I assume I probably have to just install the recommended package PEAR's mail and use the function as if I would use the mail function but in its own right, is this correct? I did not really get much in touch with working with packages. I am also wondering how do the folder work in conjunction with the server? I imagine it in a way that the folders Outbox and Sent are connected to the on the server, that is how it makes sense to me. Is this close or does it look different? What type functions may I need regarding this with PHP and may I need any more packages? Also what about speed, it seems to be a problem which should be considered from the start? I assume using Nginx and efficient coding is a good aim, is there anything else to consider? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trq Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Seriously. If you need to be asking these questions you DO NOT wan't to setup your own mail service. Without seriously understanding server maintenance, security and networking you are looking for trouble. Most of the stuff you have spoken about in your post have little to nothing to do with mail, including Nginx, which is a HTTP server. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glese Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 Very discouraging. I do not see it that seriously, programming is a task for me. Though you would provide help by describing the term trouble. What exactly seems so difficult about a private email service? I have seen and used a PHP mail service before, and it seems quite straight forward to me, I may not know the basics but I am getting a feel for it, you mentioned three categories I can learn easily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Seeing/using mail is one thing (which btw is not an email service itself)... but building your own email service is an entirely different thing. Don't try to run before you can crawl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glese Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 You guys are twisting it quite a bit, you are saying do not try to run whereas I am asking very basic questions, how is that seen as run? Criticize and moan and discourage, but let doers do and exceed, while you continue the former. This thread can be considered as a fail I will simply research more. I recommend to remove the clutter, because you stress it quite a bit and that seems like you do not understand it thoroughly yourself. Those who do understand it they perceive it with ease, I am just getting started with it but I do not see it as a big deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glese Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 I did mark this as solved, I do understand I had a mis conception, I researched it more, quite a bit is clear, I think it is all possible, the one thing which seems problematic is the spam filter. I will have to see if there is a pre-programmed one which I could use, I would unlikely want to start the project without that and would have to create one myself, because to build a strong one takes a bit. I simply took offense to the discouragement, it are the doers who exceed in my eyes, do remember that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trq Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 You guys are twisting it quite a bit, you are saying do not try to run whereas I am asking very basic questions, how is that seen as run? The questions you where asking are seemingly unrelated to the task of maintaining or developing a "mail service". Criticize and moan and discourage, but let doers do and exceed, while you continue the former. While it is good and even encouraged to set yourself goals, you really need to understand your limits. This is not stuff your even going to learn overnight let alone become experienced enough to run a trusted service with. Have you any experience maintaining unix servers? Have you any experience with a proper firewall such as iptables? Have you any experience installing and configuring properly an smtp server such as postfix or exim? Do you know what I am talking about? I recommend to remove the clutter, because you stress it quite a bit and that seems like you do not understand it thoroughly yourself. Those who do understand it they perceive it with ease, I am just getting started with it but I do not see it as a big deal. People who do not understand a problems scale will often mistakingly assume it as "simple" or as "easy enough to learn". These people quickly forget that more complex problems are often solved by people with allot of experience in the field. Don't get me wrong. Given enough time and ambition anyone can achieve there goals. However, coming to a community of programmers, server administrators and IT professionals who can see instantly that you are a beginner then writing off there advice as discouragement for the sake of being discouraging. Seriously, you need a wake up call. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glese Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 Have you actually ever noticed that you often ask "have you experience" and you direct the question to newbies? Now, tell me it does not seem twisting. I do have the gist in mind, I do have a gist of everything you stated and everything is learn-able, it is all a building block system. I thought the spam filter may become a problem until I found out that the bigger mail servers do provide one. A lot is simpler than it seems, the clutter seems like added clutter, simply remove it. And I do recommend not to ask starters if they have experience, seems pointless to me. I do have time and I see programming as a task, an email service seems like a new challenge, other than that I can program quite a bit, and I do not have experience in this field, otherwise it would not be a challenge to me. It is after all that simple, it just takes a bit of investment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trq Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 I'm not sure why you bother to come here asking questions then to be honest. If you think it's a good idea, and your not willing to listen to other more experienced peoples opinions, just get on with it, why ask the questions? Good luck. I won't be commenting on any more of your ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glese Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 I did not mean to abrase I simply took offense to the discouraging. I do agree I started with the first basic questions and was mis concepted, it took a bit more research to get the gist of how to build a mail server and I still think it is not as difficult as this thread makes it seem. You can have a look inside into this book: http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Open-Source-Mail-Enterprise/dp/159059598X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1325675443&sr=8-3 It describes a solely open source solution from beginning to end and much has not to be programmed by one self, be it the spam filter, anti virus filter or even the webmail software, a lot is pre-programmed and simply needs to be put together and set up. This book provides a complete solution till completion, by the index it seems as easy as setting up and if the book is well written it may be just like that. At first I thought I may have to program the webmail software myself with PHP which is the reason I mentioned Nginx where you said it has nothing to do with this, whereas it actually has. But even that is not needed since pre-programmed solutions for that are available as well. There are businesses from small to big asking for emails solutions every day, if many do it why should I not be able to manage to set up one, as said many times it just takes a bit. You did tell me I may not want to start getting into this field by the questions I asked, after all I did get the gist and I may have the mail server up and running in some time and may look back to this thread. It is all cool with me nevertheless, you do provide help most of the time on this forum and people notice. Though I do not like discussing on the internet or in forums, I use it just for quick responses, this is as invested as I get. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinM1 Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 It took me about 3 weeks to setup a Postfix server once. Was not fun. At least it made me realize I hate server setup and maintenance. That's what dedicated IT people are for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 We're not trying to be discouraging for everything. We want to make sure you can complete a project that's on your level first. I've personally seen too many people come in and learn to code and after a week they attempt to make something way over their head. A few days later you typically have one of two situations on your hand: the first is they post a billion help messages and everybody else ends up writing the code for them (thus, they don't learn) or secondly, they get too frustrated and leave. Both of those situations rarely help the original person. Now, if you're generally interested in how it works, that's cool. The engineer in me really kicks in whenever I get to tinker with things or I see something cool and I always want to know how it works. The same applies to code, and for some it can really be intriguing to see how it works. However in this case, from my understanding you only have a few (2?) months of PHP under your belt and no other programming experience that you've made us aware of. So seeing the first line "I am intending to build my own email service", I tend to think you want to do it for more than just seeing how it works. It took me about 3 weeks to setup a Postfix server once. Was not fun. At least it made me realize I hate server setup and maintenance. That's what dedicated IT people are for. I absolutely hate setting up Postfix/dovecot. No matter what I do, something ALWAYS goes wrong Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scootstah Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 It took me about 3 weeks to setup a Postfix server once. Was not fun. At least it made me realize I hate server setup and maintenance. That's what dedicated IT people are for. I absolutely hate setting up Postfix/dovecot. No matter what I do, something ALWAYS goes wrong Yeah, it took me way too long to configure Postfix to simply send an email to my Gmail for local development (sending activation emails and such). If I had to set one up for use as like an email service? F that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 If I had to set one up for use as like an email service? F that. I nearly went bald because of all the hair I pulled out. And I've done it for 5 or so servers for their own email service. Each one presented its own problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinM1 Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 And then there's securing it.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scootstah Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 And then there's securing it.... Heh... Yeah, like you said, that's what IT people are for. I used a tutorial to setup my local Postfix, typing in a bunch of config commands in terminal going "no idea what that does, no idea what that does..." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterACE14 Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 I am intending to build my own email service who has the time? lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug G Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 If you want a guide you could build an ispconfig3 server. You'll end up with a properly configured and pretty easy to administer mail server. http://www.ispconfig.org/ispconfig-3/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizmola Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 I am intending to build my own email service and I am wondering if you guys have any recommendations? I am planning to use Nginx with the eAcclerator functionality as the server application. I have read up a bit in the PHP documentation and found out that for example the mail function is not really suited for bigger volumes. I assume I probably have to just install the recommended package PEAR's mail and use the function as if I would use the mail function but in its own right, is this correct? I did not really get much in touch with working with packages. I am also wondering how do the folder work in conjunction with the server? I imagine it in a way that the folders Outbox and Sent are connected to the on the server, that is how it makes sense to me. Is this close or does it look different? What type functions may I need regarding this with PHP and may I need any more packages? Also what about speed, it seems to be a problem which should be considered from the start? I assume using Nginx and efficient coding is a good aim, is there anything else to consider? There are a number of standards inolved in mail transport/email. SMTP is what is used to move email between domains/email servers. IMAP/POP is used to send/retrieve mail from the end user to their local mail server. IMAP in particular is the standard that facilitates mail folders, and persistent storage of email on a server. Then there are the actual email format standards. It's not really clear what you are after, but understanding the various standards involved might help you focus in on how you would accomplish various email related tasks, as well as coming to understand what existing packages and libraries do, and what problems they try and solve. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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