Re: Mail Appliances?

[Freddie]

Paul, even with the best appliance if the hard drive goes there is  
no such
thing as a reset. Sure, you can maybe cluster them, but if the  
fiber, san or
whatever critical component goes, there is no reset.  The easier  
the better
sure, many times the easier does not have the features you are looking
for.....

I think one of the main motives for wanting something appliancey/ 
embedded isnt that its indestructible, but that its easier for others  
(ie non-professionals, windows people afraid of command lines, etc)  
to administer and recover if it destroys itself. It really sucks to  
be on holiday and someone calls you in a panic situation and you're  
like "type vi /etc/somefile.conf then press enter. No I said VEEE  
AAAYYY!" (been there done that!). But yeah appliances tend to have  
less features and customizability, but often this is an acceptable  
compromise (sometimes even preferable).

To the original poster, whoever it was, take a look at virtual  
appliances: http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/
There are quite a few mail servers there. Personally I think virtual  
appliances have a great future ahead of them.





My 2 cents.
-pa

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Hutchings [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 12:42 PM
To: users@spamassassin.apache.org
Subject: RE: Mail Appliances?

I'm slightly cautious myself tbh.   I'm not a *nix admin by profession
I'm a Network Admin who managed to install Suse and postfix/ 
spamassassin
etc.  It's great when it works, if it ever breaks I suspect it'll  
be a case
of "unplug it and change the MX record" pretty damned quick whilst  
I most
likely wipe the thing.

There's also the old scenario of if I'm simply not in, yes I can give
someone a crip sheet on ssh and grep but it's not quite as nice as  
browing
to http://boxoftricks and looking at the queue tab etc.

I'm in two minds as I much prefer the level of customization that I  
can get
from the DIY approach, but an appliance that can (more or less) be
configured, that has a "reset" button and a simple way to backup/ 
restore the
config does sound quite appealing.

I guess one option would be to simply setup the base installation  
and then
ghost the thing.

Paul

________________________________

From: Paul Aviles [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 27 February 2007 16:55
To: 'Chris Santerre'; Paul Hutchings; users@spamassassin.apache.org
Subject: RE: Mail Appliances?


There are are bunch of them about there. If someone is concern about
Paul getting hit by a bus, there are several thousands (literally)  
good
admins for hire on the net and several companies providing SA  
services.
I always wonder how the "bosses" got their jobs.....

If they want zero admin, check Postini or MessagesLabs, I prefer  
ML, but
that is my personal opinion. On the appliances, Barracuda as you know,
Astaro, Symantec, etc.

Regards,

Paul Aviles
Nickel Networks

________________________________

From: Chris Santerre [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 11:42 AM
To: 'Paul Hutchings'; users@spamassassin.apache.org
Subject: RE: Mail Appliances?





-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Hutchings [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 5:47 AM
To: users@spamassassin.apache.org
Subject: Mail Appliances?


Appreciate this may not be 100% the best place to ask, but I'm
struggling to think of anywhere better other than Usenet.

I'm currently running a box that I've configured to run Postfix plus
Spamassassin, it works, but it's the usual "Only I know about
it and if
it fails or I get hit by a bus" etc.

I get that line from my boss all the time. I simply reply "If I'm  
hit by
a bus, your screwed. So pay me enough where I don't have to walk." :)


So I'm looking for an appliance that will do basic in/out mail relay
with antivirus and antispam filtering, that will allow me to
route mail
on a per domain basis and do all the usual custom whitelists and
blacklists etc.

I believe Mcafee has something that does all of that. I'm slightly
biased towards them because they give back to open source  
community. And
I love their accents :)

--Chris


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