I am new to Linux but not to computers. I can install Linux in its standard form but cant find any documentation on how to setup the mail server or web server. I have always used Microcrap in the past but due to hackers, I'm wanting a change that is more secure than MS. Can someone please send me in the right direction as to how to setup a mail server and a web server on linux?

Thanks, Mark (newbe to Linux)

I am guessing you are running Apache as your web server (or will be wanting to run Apache as your web server). If you go to the Apache HTTPD Website there are links to the documentation for both version 1.3 and version 2.0 on the nav bar on the left side of the page. Version 1.3 is still pretty popular so if you are running Apache as installed by a distribution you might still have this version.

As far as mail servers, there are a bunch of different ones. I recommend Postfix for most users. It is way more feature rich then sendmail and quite easy to configure. You can find documentation at the Postfix Web Site.

I hope this helps you out.

And if you do end up using sendmail (The beast as I call it) for your mail server, you can find tons of documentation on their site: www.sendmail.org

The only reason I mention sendmail though is just about every distro includes it by default.

Cheers.

Btw, we can help you better if you tell us what distro you are using. Thanks..

-twantrd

Not to sound real dumb but what is a distro, if this what version of Linux am I using its Mandrake 9.2. You must be aware, my knowledge of Linux is very raw, I've been a MS user for 20 years, but need a real change and am willing to learn.

The web server I guessing Apache is the best,More and more website choice it ,It become more and more popular,you can find a lot of information that tell you how to setup a apache server.
As to the mail server,I have nerver setup one of it,I think other people will give you their options.

cheers!

Don't worry about sounding dumb Markv. There is about 2 million terms people through around and it takes some getting used to.

Your distribution would be Mandrake 9.2. A distribution is the entire package, including the linux kernel and all the other software that you installed.

Technically speaking "linux" is an operating system kernel, and when you add all the other stuff (mostly gnu software: www.gnu.org) to it you get one sweet operating system (in my opinion anyway). These days, however, the term linux is often used (to the bane of Mr. Stallman at GNU) to describe the entire operating system.

So to make a long story short, if somebody askes me what version of linux I am running I usually tell them I run Gentoo 1.4 with the 2.6.1 Linux kernel just to make sure I answer there question. You can find out exactly what version of the kernel you are running by typing uname -r at a command prompt.

for webserver try httpd2.0.48 ... www.apache.org ... and for mail service try squirell mail .... wwww.squirellmail.org

First of all, you spelled it wrong, its www.squirrelmail.org but that is just web based email client per se. To setup mail you have to have something like sendmail, postfix, qmail and such along with imapd or pop3 running on your server.

Regards.

When you at a point where you are satisfied with your MTA then I would recommend courier-imap (especially if you use Postfix which you should use with Maildir's) as an ssl-imap server so you can easily get to your e-mail from anywhere.

John