-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Dory [mailto:jdory (at mark) nomealaska.org]
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 1:08 PM
To: coba-e (at mark) bluequartz.org
Subject: [coba-e:16000] Migrating from Bq - a couple questions
I'm getting a new server to replace a 3 year old one for email and maybe
web. I'm using BQ right now for admin of it, so figured it is a good time to
explore what path to take.
The Bq is setup with servername d1.nomecity.org and I have a virtual site
set up for our email and web: nomealaska.org. So both our web site and email
server is named nomealaska.org.
First question is based on the fact our "admin folk" have decided to move
our website to a hosting company (already pretty much considering a
government based one) but I'm hoping to at least keep our email in house for
the time being. So will I need to rename the email pop3 and smtp server from
nomealaska.org to maybe something like mail.nomealaska.org and
smtp.nomealaska.org as virtual sites or will I just be able to point the mx
records on our DNS (hosted outside our lan) to the ip address of our email
server? (I don't do this for a living really..just secondary to my main
job). Because the website will retain the name of (www.) nomealaska.org.
When I initially set up the new server the website will still be setup on it
- we haven't migrated yet to a hosting company. But just to be ready for it,
I figured I better start thinking about it.
Second question is if it makes sense to stick with the derivative of BQ
- BlueOnyx. I'm not really a webhoster, just have the one site. I do find
some things easier to manage with Bluequartz than something like Webmin, but
I also am quite comfortable with webmin and use it for managing
users/groups/shares under samba and the like. I also have to worry about
breaking things in BQ if I want to install my own packages like openwebmail,
webmin, maybe try my own spamassassin, or whatever other package. Perhaps
that is needless worry. I know I can purchase some of these packages too but
sometimes easier just to install myself.
For migration purposes, from BQ to something newer - perhaps it is easier to
go to BO than plain Centos? (Probably use latest stable Centos 5.3?). Not
sure if the cmu program requires BQ/BO.
Thanks for any advice and any suggestions of what else to think about.
cheers, Jim
--
Jim Dory
Engineering
City of Nome
PO Box 281
102 Division St.
Nome, AK 99762
907.443.6604
http://www.nomealaska.org
Hey Jim...The mail is handled with DNS. If you have server A and server B
with different IP addresses, then DNS will point mail.nomealaska.org to your
in-house mail server located at server B. and the www to server A.
Another way to look at it would be to think of it this way:
www.douglasharvey.com Forward 208.13.130.30 < this would be server A's IP
address
mail.douglasharvey.com Forward 208.13.130.30 < replace with server B's IP
address
When you get moved over to the hosting company, they can put these DNS
entries into their DNS server(s) so you wouldn't have to worry about
routing.
Hope that helps...Doug