[K12OSN] Student email

[Les Mikesell]

On Wed, 2004-12-08 at 16:59, Jim Hays wrote:
> I think David is talking about a separate box whose sole purpose is to provide
> student email.  SME makes a very good email server - it is what he is using now
> for his email, I think.  There would not be any other services needed except
> Webmail so the students can get to the server.

I've mentioned it before but I have mixed feelings about SME servers.
Their real value is in saving you the trouble of learning how to edit
a few config files, but the tradeoff is that they are much harder to
customize yourself, don't integrate well with other Linux boxes, and
the code base is way out of date.  I'm using them in remote locations,
managed by people who I wouldn't trust with a normal Linux root password
but most people on this list already know their way around /etc and
text editors.

Even if you use a separate box for the mail server, starting from a
stock k12ltsp, fedora, or centos would let you easily integrate with
your existing authentication system and let you take care of security
fixes and updates with the usual 'yum update'. 

---
  Les Mikesell
    les at futuresource.com