Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
Forgive me for the length and complexity of this. I'm hoping that you guys will be able to make some sensible suggestions to make email a usable practical thing for me, as opposed to my current chaotic non-system, which is all but useless. First, the background (I've hacked the addresses in here, in a fairly obvious way - any human being reading this (as opposed to a spam bot) can soon find out the real addresses if they want them ) :
I have the following accounts:
dial-up personal account with NC (my local ISP)
twilson@nc.com.au
This is my primary mailbox
dial-up shop account with NC (the free reseller's account we have with our ISP)
rht@nc.com.au
I rarely get mail here, but need to check it once every week or so for stuff related to the ISP connections we re-sell
dial-up account with Primus
user@iprimus.com.au
Never use this mailbox, except for Primus notices.
Will be cancelling it when my cable connection comes on-line next week
Business cable connection with Neighbourhood Cable (next week)
will have an email address associated with it which I don't intend to use at this stage
will become my primary web connection from the office
will have a static IP address (yet to be assigned)
Home cable connection with Neighbourhood Cable (next week)
will have an email address associated with it which I don't intend to use at this stage
will become my primary web connection from home
will *not* have a static IP (though I could add one if required)
Web page hosted by NC
anythingyoulike@redhil.net.au
Any mail sent to redhil.net.au (e.g, tony@redhil.net.au, heyyou@redhil.net.au, sales@redhil.net.au, help@redhil.net.au, whatever) gets piped straight to my primary personal mail box above (twilson@nc.com.au)
-----------------------
That's where the mail goes to. Now, here is what I do with it at present - the unworkable "non-system":
The primary mail-reading machine is at the office, runs ECS, and I use PMMail to collect mail in the ordinary way from the primary mail box (which gets twilson@nc.com.au and anything @redhil.net.au), and also (using PMMail's multiple account feature) from the odd-bod mail boxes (like Primus or the shop account) every now and then. So far, so good.
From home, I use PMMail for Windows to read any mail that happens to have arrived since I last checked it at the office, and leave the messages on the server so that any business mail that arrives overnight is still there waiting to be collected when I get back to the office. Sometimes I use a different machine in a different location (my girlfriend's place, for example) in the same way.
Next, the problems:
1: I get *masses* of SPAM. So much so that all too often I miss messages from my mother, because I just don't see them in amongst all that spam. From time to time I have toyed with spam eradicators, PMMail filters, and so on, but it is just too complicated with *two* different machines to set all that up with, for what is in any case an uncertain result.
2: The business machine gets clogged up with all sorts of non-business stuff (which is not too bad, but I mention it for completeness).
3: Often I want to reply to a personal or semi-personal message at home (which is the only place I get time to do it), but don't have it there, because it arrived during business
hours and the only copy of it is on the work machine. Sometimes I remember to email it to myself before I leave the office (using one of the odd-bod addresses, such as the Primus one so that it won't get "cleaned out" by the main mail machine) and then have to mess about collecting it, then copying and pasting it into the inbox of the account I am logged on with at the time. (This is because if you just hit "reply" to a message, PMMail will, perfectly sensibly, try to send the reply using the account that the mail has arrived in, but I'm often not logged on to that particular server at the time. You can get around this by playing with the account settings in PMMail: for example, I have my redhil@redhil.net.au account set to always get mail from mail.nc.com.au (who host the redhil site) using username twilson and the appropriate password for my primary mailbox, but to *send* using smtp.iprimus.com.au using *that* username and password. This works OK 3/4s of the time but many mail servers and clients look at the mixture of addresses in the header and refuse to accept the message, thinking that it is spam. The os2.org.au mail list processor is an example. I'll had to make a special "send only" account in PMMail for OS/2 to send this very message to the user group or else it would have bounced. (I seem to recall having similar diffculties with Mercutio's and Coug's mail servers some time ago.)
4: I'm going onto cable this week, both at home and at the office. At this stage I don't expect any particular problems with that so far as basic connectivity goes, I can just plug the cable modem into my network hub and go from there (I think) but the office network in particular will become vulnerable to the usual hacking attacks, as it will have a static IP. So I need a firewall. With me so far?
--------------------------
Solutions?
Here is what I propose to do. Please, anyone with experience in this area, tell me if this makes sense, and sing out if you have suggestions.
1: Set up a firewall for the office, probably on a seperate, dedicated machine. (There is no shortage of hardware here.) This could be a Linux box, which would be cheap and give me access to lots of helpful support, but require me to do a fair bit of learning - I have very little Linux experience. (Mind you, perhaps having to learn some Linix administration skills would be a good thing for me!) I could use some form of Windows, but why? Most likely I'll use an OS/2 or ECS box. Probably Warp 4 as I already have a spare licence or two for that. But one of the guys on the OS/2 mailing list I subscribe to suggested that I might look at Smoothwall. (No, believe it or not, they are not all zealots. Most members run the same sort of motley collection of OS software that I do.) Smoothwall, if you haven't met it, is a dedicated firewall package that runs on a severly cut-down version of Red Hat Linux. It's free and requires a dedicated machine of the Pentium 300 variety with two NICs. You can't run anything else on the Smoothwall machine.)
If I *do* use an OS/2 box for this, which firewall software should I use? There is a firewall bundled free with ECS. I already own InJoy Firewall with a 12-user licence (though I have not yet used it). InJoy sounds like the obvious choice, but does anyone have any experience with it? Points for? Points against? (OK, OK, you guys won't have the answer to this, but seeing as this is largely a repost of my question to the OS/2 user group, I'll leave it in anyway.)
2: Set up my own mail server. Now this is something I know almost *nothing* about. What package? How to set it up? I guess the ideal system would be to have the firewall box be the mail server. As it will have a static IP, I'll be able to access it from the LAN, from home, from anywhere. Is it possible to set it up in such a way that I can filter the incoming mail into various folders on the mail server/firewall, and then access just the appropriate ones - personal mail to tony@redhill.net.au from home, supplier pricelists to prices@redhill.net.au from one of the office machines, and so on? Ideally, I'd be able to leave all mail on the mail server/firewall for a certain period (a week, say) so that I could (e.g) read the os2.org.au digest at the office if I get a spare minute and feel like a break from 'real' work, but then read it again at home and maybe draft a reply later on.
3: Look at junk mail filtering. JunkSpy seems to get excellent reviews. Does anyone use it? Will it conflict with anything else I have planned? (After I wrote this the first time, I installed Junk Spy and, as you will have read, I am really happy with the result. It has made a massive difference.)
Thanks guys!
I have the following accounts:
dial-up personal account with NC (my local ISP)
twilson@nc.com.au
This is my primary mailbox
dial-up shop account with NC (the free reseller's account we have with our ISP)
rht@nc.com.au
I rarely get mail here, but need to check it once every week or so for stuff related to the ISP connections we re-sell
dial-up account with Primus
user@iprimus.com.au
Never use this mailbox, except for Primus notices.
Will be cancelling it when my cable connection comes on-line next week
Business cable connection with Neighbourhood Cable (next week)
will have an email address associated with it which I don't intend to use at this stage
will become my primary web connection from the office
will have a static IP address (yet to be assigned)
Home cable connection with Neighbourhood Cable (next week)
will have an email address associated with it which I don't intend to use at this stage
will become my primary web connection from home
will *not* have a static IP (though I could add one if required)
Web page hosted by NC
anythingyoulike@redhil.net.au
Any mail sent to redhil.net.au (e.g, tony@redhil.net.au, heyyou@redhil.net.au, sales@redhil.net.au, help@redhil.net.au, whatever) gets piped straight to my primary personal mail box above (twilson@nc.com.au)
-----------------------
That's where the mail goes to. Now, here is what I do with it at present - the unworkable "non-system":
The primary mail-reading machine is at the office, runs ECS, and I use PMMail to collect mail in the ordinary way from the primary mail box (which gets twilson@nc.com.au and anything @redhil.net.au), and also (using PMMail's multiple account feature) from the odd-bod mail boxes (like Primus or the shop account) every now and then. So far, so good.
From home, I use PMMail for Windows to read any mail that happens to have arrived since I last checked it at the office, and leave the messages on the server so that any business mail that arrives overnight is still there waiting to be collected when I get back to the office. Sometimes I use a different machine in a different location (my girlfriend's place, for example) in the same way.
Next, the problems:
1: I get *masses* of SPAM. So much so that all too often I miss messages from my mother, because I just don't see them in amongst all that spam. From time to time I have toyed with spam eradicators, PMMail filters, and so on, but it is just too complicated with *two* different machines to set all that up with, for what is in any case an uncertain result.
2: The business machine gets clogged up with all sorts of non-business stuff (which is not too bad, but I mention it for completeness).
3: Often I want to reply to a personal or semi-personal message at home (which is the only place I get time to do it), but don't have it there, because it arrived during business
hours and the only copy of it is on the work machine. Sometimes I remember to email it to myself before I leave the office (using one of the odd-bod addresses, such as the Primus one so that it won't get "cleaned out" by the main mail machine) and then have to mess about collecting it, then copying and pasting it into the inbox of the account I am logged on with at the time. (This is because if you just hit "reply" to a message, PMMail will, perfectly sensibly, try to send the reply using the account that the mail has arrived in, but I'm often not logged on to that particular server at the time. You can get around this by playing with the account settings in PMMail: for example, I have my redhil@redhil.net.au account set to always get mail from mail.nc.com.au (who host the redhil site) using username twilson and the appropriate password for my primary mailbox, but to *send* using smtp.iprimus.com.au using *that* username and password. This works OK 3/4s of the time but many mail servers and clients look at the mixture of addresses in the header and refuse to accept the message, thinking that it is spam. The os2.org.au mail list processor is an example. I'll had to make a special "send only" account in PMMail for OS/2 to send this very message to the user group or else it would have bounced. (I seem to recall having similar diffculties with Mercutio's and Coug's mail servers some time ago.)
4: I'm going onto cable this week, both at home and at the office. At this stage I don't expect any particular problems with that so far as basic connectivity goes, I can just plug the cable modem into my network hub and go from there (I think) but the office network in particular will become vulnerable to the usual hacking attacks, as it will have a static IP. So I need a firewall. With me so far?
--------------------------
Solutions?
Here is what I propose to do. Please, anyone with experience in this area, tell me if this makes sense, and sing out if you have suggestions.
1: Set up a firewall for the office, probably on a seperate, dedicated machine. (There is no shortage of hardware here.) This could be a Linux box, which would be cheap and give me access to lots of helpful support, but require me to do a fair bit of learning - I have very little Linux experience. (Mind you, perhaps having to learn some Linix administration skills would be a good thing for me!) I could use some form of Windows, but why? Most likely I'll use an OS/2 or ECS box. Probably Warp 4 as I already have a spare licence or two for that. But one of the guys on the OS/2 mailing list I subscribe to suggested that I might look at Smoothwall. (No, believe it or not, they are not all zealots. Most members run the same sort of motley collection of OS software that I do.) Smoothwall, if you haven't met it, is a dedicated firewall package that runs on a severly cut-down version of Red Hat Linux. It's free and requires a dedicated machine of the Pentium 300 variety with two NICs. You can't run anything else on the Smoothwall machine.)
If I *do* use an OS/2 box for this, which firewall software should I use? There is a firewall bundled free with ECS. I already own InJoy Firewall with a 12-user licence (though I have not yet used it). InJoy sounds like the obvious choice, but does anyone have any experience with it? Points for? Points against? (OK, OK, you guys won't have the answer to this, but seeing as this is largely a repost of my question to the OS/2 user group, I'll leave it in anyway.)
2: Set up my own mail server. Now this is something I know almost *nothing* about. What package? How to set it up? I guess the ideal system would be to have the firewall box be the mail server. As it will have a static IP, I'll be able to access it from the LAN, from home, from anywhere. Is it possible to set it up in such a way that I can filter the incoming mail into various folders on the mail server/firewall, and then access just the appropriate ones - personal mail to tony@redhill.net.au from home, supplier pricelists to prices@redhill.net.au from one of the office machines, and so on? Ideally, I'd be able to leave all mail on the mail server/firewall for a certain period (a week, say) so that I could (e.g) read the os2.org.au digest at the office if I get a spare minute and feel like a break from 'real' work, but then read it again at home and maybe draft a reply later on.
3: Look at junk mail filtering. JunkSpy seems to get excellent reviews. Does anyone use it? Will it conflict with anything else I have planned? (After I wrote this the first time, I installed Junk Spy and, as you will have read, I am really happy with the result. It has made a massive difference.)
Thanks guys!