A Linux system often takes a very different approach to handling email on a user's workstation than Windows. In Linux a "full blown" email server is often installed. In Windows, the normal approach is to install an email client only, connected to an ISP's email server.

I have some needs beyond the simplest approach because I need a mail server for the following situations:

• I run a small LAN at home, and my wife and son have their own machines. Currently we share one email address. (This may change when RCN gets two-way cable in our area (and keep the price at $40 a month) -- currently we use a dial up line to another ISP.) In the current approach, we use one machine as the master email machine. The mail is stored in a shared directory so it can be read from any of the other machines. (That machine must always be up when mail is received so that mail is stored properly. I subscribe to a lot of mail lists that my wife and son would prefer not to have to wade through.)

• I am setting up a LAN for a computer school (see ChurchServerProject). They intend to start Internet classes. For that purpose we want to be able to exchange email among the computers in the lab (without a connection to the Internet).

This is out of place, do I need it anywhere near here? Before you started learning about Linux you may not have heard of MTA (Mail Transport Agent), MDA (Mail Delivery Agent), and MUA (Mail User Agent), even though these are intended to be "industry standard" terms, introduced and defined in the various RFCs for email.

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• RandyKramer - 02 Apr 2002
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