Can Free Software Be Really That Good?
In 1995 I built an email server on really old hardware which provided POP3/SMTP services to the network and shuttled email to the internet via UUCP. You may scoff at UUCP, but this was in the day before ADSL and everyone was using dialup… and the speedster at the time was a 28.8 modem!
The server was running free software such as RedHat Linux 4.0 (now called Fedora), Samba for storing user’s email on the server and Pegasus as an email client. I set up Windows login scripts for users, experimented with roaming profiles and all user’s files were stored on the server. I set it up not just because it was useful, but rather that it was a fun personal challenge and I learned a whole bunch.
INTRODUCING MAZAR: Over ten years later I started a similar project. In December 2005 I was given this machine, an old Dell Dimension V-400 (PII-400 mini-tower computer) and I wondered if it was possible to set up a home server with web, ftp and email services with completely free software. I was curious if you could do it and actually depend on it. Additionally as this is old hardware which won’t even hardly run Windows, I wondered if free software could give it a new lease on life. So I named this server Mazar and started my journey!
After evaluating quite a number of Linux distros, I settled on openSUSE as my operating system. I wanted an all around good Linux as a basic building block. Something that worked well as a desktop replacement for Windows should I ever be interested, plus if I was going to bother learning something, I wanted it to be a serious server product with commercial support should I ever want to use it in a work setting.
I did look at Fedora because I my first Linux experience was in RedHat. However, since RedHat had spun off it’s free version of its software under the name Fedora, I felt they had lost a lot of the polish they used to have. I also felt that distros like Ubuntu and Mandriva didn’t have enough business backing. All of these packages are good candidates and it was particularly hard for me to leave RedHat, however I think openSUSE is probably the best all around distro at the moment.
In addition to the stuff included in openSUSE, I have added a few bits and pieces which you can read about in my Server Specs Page. The end result is that I have stable email, web and ftp services running on my home £19/month DSL connection for no cost. After over 18 months of running it, I can safely say that you could do this in your home and depend on it.
THEN THERE IS IT’S SISTER TRIPOLI: Since starting this project, I have built a firewall out of a similarly spec’ed Dell minitower which I named Tripoli using a software package based on FreeBSD called pfSense. I needed the ability to put this server in a DMZ and also separate my wireless traffic into a seperate zone off of my lan. I also wanted to be able to access my home network while travelling using openVPN. Again, this was all completely free software. I would have to say that this project has been equally as fun and I have learned tonnes about networking… and in the process made our home network very secure.
So if you are interested in a hobby that will require you to learn a lot, give free software a go. My conclusion at this stage is that you can take a very old computer that will not run Windows any more and give it new life with free software. If you want to have your own email domain and webserver, you will even save yourself some money. Questions? Drop me a note with the contact form and I’ll be happy to lend a hand!