Hi,

I've been reading up on dedicated hosting plans, and the pro's and cons. Personally, I'm experienced with Linux and virtual hosting; but have never had my own dedicated box.

Thus I want to know where the division of labor is for Sendmail and BIND. For example, I want to transfer 3 domains over to my dedicated box. Who takes care of the transfer? I know a lot of dedicated sites let you run your own DNS or have them host it. I would probably have my provider host it, but with doing this, what and how much will I need to set up myself in Sendmail and BIND? I guess my major fear is botching up the two major setups, and then loosing my email/domains for a couple days. For now i'll keep reading up on how to set up these services, but any personal experience would be appreciated.

thanks,

citroid

If your Isp will do your dns for your domains then just forget that there is a thing called bind. you do not have to worry about , though i prefer to do the dns on my own system .

Sendmail you would have to know a bit. Most isps preconfigure the box to run sendmail and i suppose all you will have to do with sendmail is

1. create the user (Eg user1)
2. In sendmail.cw file write the domain name (That means that your box is going to handle mails for this domain)

Example

mydomain.com
yourdomain.com

3. In your virusertable you have to point that mail for particular mail address goes to particular user

Example
user1@mydomain.com user1
user2@yourdomain.com user2

4. Most important is you should make sure that your MX records are set right,

If you setup your mail accounts on new box properly , Mx records are also fine and after that you give domain transfer request to internic then you are also very unlikely to lose mails

And if you have a control panel to do these then your life is very easy. Even if you dont i recommend atleast using webmin (www.webmin.com) for doing these tasks above.
Note that Mx records etc your ISp will do if he is doing your dns.

Wish u good luck,
Regards
Manish Kapadia
Bombay-India

For any user, forget SendMail, use EXIM http://www.exim.org. Exim is so, so simple to install and use.

With SendMail you need to know MD5 (or something like that), whereas exim uses simple phases. Most large ISP's actually use Exim over Sendmail as it is quicker and simplier to use.

Take a look at the websites for each then decide.

Sendmail - http://www.sendmail.org
Exim - http://www.exim.org

Rgds.

Gareth C. Fowler

Go with qmail it is better than exim and sendmail. http://www.qmail.net, add on vpopmail, with qmailadmin http://www.inter7.com you are all set. That is if you don't have a control panel like cpanel, plesk, or ensim.

Thanks for all the info! I am thinking of going ahead with a dedicated system. I think that will be the best way to learn. As long as I don't put my main email address on it in the beginning I should be ok. Then as I learn and get more comfortable, then I can move everything over.

thanks!

citroid