If i wanted to setup my linux desktop to send receive email {as its own server} how/where would i start'?

I run Hardy Heron,





At the moment I havent installed LAMP Package but im having a play around with plone and would be nice to host a site and host email aswell all from my box of coarse







If i wanted to setup my linux desktop to send receive email {as its own server} how/where would i start'?
I would strongly urge you not to do that on a desktop system.





First of all, you would have to install sendmail or qmail, and configure it for your system. The O'Reilly book on Sendmail is about three thousand pages, so configuring it can be brutal.





Second, you need a domain name and name servers that would point to your system with MX records so mail can be delivered to your mail server. You'll probably have to pay for part of that service.





Third, you have to leave the SMTP ports open on your system to have mail sent and delivered. And, unless you're really good at system security and have a firewall with carefully-written rules, you'll wind up receiving more spam than anything else.





And, by the way, LAMP has nothing to do with sending and receiving mail. LAMP provides you with a web server, database and a scripting core. Unless you're installing it to do development on your local box, I hope you're not planning to host a site on your desktop system. That's what hosting services are for.





If you plan to do all this on a server, that's a different story. But you'll still have to pay for a domain name, DNS hosting of some kind, etc. And your internet provider will not be happy if you start running a web and mail server on a box in your house.





One other thing regarding the mail: many internet providers block port 25 on their networks to prevent systems on the net from being used for spamming. So, even if you got all this mail stuff set up at home, you probably still wouldn't be able to use it.





Now, do you still want to do it?