Looking for Suggestions

[MISdad]

I have a home network connected to the internet via cable modem (have a linksys cable router w/ 4 port switch). I want to put a server between the cable modem and the rest of the network to act as a firewall, web content filter (for the kids) and email retrieval/spam blocking server. We each have separate email accounts that are stored on our hosted domain (mail.internetserver.com). What I want to do is have each users email go through this new server and have the users retrieve their email from the internal network (mail.homeserver.com) instead of going to the hosted domain server (mail.internetserver.com) to retrieve mail. I have mandrake and redhat (which I've never installed by the way) but not any of the other mail programs (fetchmail, etc.). Forgive my ignorance, but I am new to linux (have lots of NT/2000 experience) and am looking for the best way to set this up - which OS, mail utilities, etc. to use. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[iolair]

I'm no expert, but I think you can do this with either version of Linux. What you might need is two network interfaces, one on the server to the cable modem, and the other one on the server to the internal (home) network. This will make your server a router. Then, you'll need to install some kind of mailserver (sendmail, qmail, or something similar) and make sure that the MTA (message transfer agent) knows how to connect to the mail server at mail.internetserver.com.

For myself, I'd use RedHat. There are lots and lots of resources on the web about how to do this. If you check out the Linux Documentation Project (

http://www.tldp.org/)

there are lots of howtos, etc. for doing this. Good luck. It can be done. Sorry I'm not more help.

Iolair MacWalter

 

[flugh]

Check out Debian (a superior Linux distribution). Then look at this page to see how to do the webmail thing (also works without webmail, but you will need to setup fetchmail for everyone).

I've used Debian on my P166/56MB laptop for the last few years doing the firewall thing just like you are looking at. Has run like a champ and never let me down.

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JBR