Hello, jamiedolan:
To provide a webmail interface, the best option available is
SquirrelMail, you can find it here:
SquirrelMail
http://www.squirrelmail.org
"What is SquirrelMail?
SquirrelMail is a standards-based webmail package written in PHP4. It
includes built-in pure PHP support for the IMAP and SMTP protocols,
and all pages render in pure HTML 4.0 (with no JavaScript required)
for maximum compatibility across browsers. It has very few
requirements and is very easy to configure and install. SquirrelMail
has all the functionality you would want from an email client,
including strong MIME support, address books, and folder
manipulation."
Here you have some screenshots of the working tool:
ScreenShots
http://www.squirrelmail.org/screenshots.php
Many of the features you request are implemented out-of-the-box but
SquirrelMail supports plugins which allows you to add more
functionality and in any case, the code is GPL, so you can hire a
developer to customize it to fit your needs.
SquirrelMail Features
http://www.squirrelmail.org/wiki/en_US/SquirrelMailFeatures
Plugins
http://www.squirrelmail.org/plugins.php
To find a developer to customize it, you can look here
RentACoder.com
http://www.rentacoder.com
To host squirrelmail, any PHP webserver is valid, check out the requeriments here:
Requeriments
http://www.squirrelmail.org/wiki/SquirrelMailRequirements
In any case, here are some hosting companies that provide squirrelmail
as an option or built-in:
AssortedInternet.com
http://www.assortedinternet.com/hosting/learn-about/built-in-free-squirrelmail-webmail-client.jsp
HostingAndBeyond.com
http://www.hostingandbeyond.com/feature_webmail.php
AstraHosting
http://www.astrahosting.com/index-en.html
But you don't need to be constrained to a hosting company that offers
squirrelmail, in fact most hosting companies supporting PHP will be
able to run it.
I hope this is the information you were looking for, in any case,
please, don't hesitate to request for a clarification.
Regards. |
Request for Answer Clarification by
jamiedolan-ga
on
28 Jan 2004 15:48 PST
HI,
I understand that I can run squirrel on and host that support php,
however, do I need to have a e-mail account on the system for every
account I have in squirrel mail? I would assume I do. Do you know of
any hosts that can do this costeffectivle for a large number of e-mail
accounts?
jamie
|
Clarification of Answer by
joseleon-ga
on
29 Jan 2004 07:50 PST
Hello, jamiedolan:
Yes, you are right, squirrel mail is just an interface to a mail
server, in the same way a normal e-mail client is, that is, it's not a
server itself, so you need to add mail accounts to your server to be
accessed by squirrel mail. For what you say, you are planning a big
project in which you will give away many e-mail addresses, so I
suggest you the following:
-Contract a dedicated server, is a machine you can do whatever you
need and there are no constraints imposed by the host, just traffic
and disk space.
-If you can, setup an stable debian distro, is the most easy option to
configure for novice users
-If you are novice to linux, contract a managed dedicated hosting, is
a machine you can do whatever you need, but they manage all setup
-If you plan to give your users a mail account which can be read using
a normal e-mail client (i.e. Outlook) and also using the webmail
interface, I suggest you to use an IMAP server, instead a POP one.
This way, your users will have synchronized both clients, but the
e-mails will be stored on the machine, so prepare a big hard disk.
I can recommend you:
ServePath
http://www.servepath.com/servers/redhat_server.htm
Just tell me what do you think and don't hesitate to request for any clarification.
Regards.
|
Request for Answer Clarification by
jamiedolan-ga
on
02 Feb 2004 15:25 PST
One last question. Do you have any idea how I can estimate the
monthly usage in terms of bandwidth, it seems that almost everyone
offers X amount of bandwidth, the one you showed me seems very
inexpensive, and genourous offering 200 gig's. I am just wondering if
you can find a ratio anywhere that show how much bandwidth you should
plan per 1000 user accounts.
|
Clarification of Answer by
joseleon-ga
on
03 Feb 2004 07:35 PST
Hello, jamiedolan:
The transfer is very hard to calculate, because it depends on how
much traffic is going to cause a single user, for example:
-Do you have downloadable files on your site?
-Do you stream video or music?
Then, if you are just going to offer webmail:
-Do you allow files attachment?
-Do you limit the size of those attachments?
Having all these answers, you can make up a very roughly stimate of
how much a normal user will consume, and then, you can multiply this
value by 30 days and by 1000 users.
But in any case, this information may not be real, it depends on a lot
of factors you cannot control.
I hope it helps!
Regards.
|
Request for Answer Clarification by
jamiedolan-ga
on
15 Feb 2004 14:42 PST
I am not too concerned about the traffic on the mail part of thesite.
There seem to be plent of reasonably priced web hosts that will offer
virtually unlimited traffic for just html and graphics, however, when
you get to runing the scritps and such, it seems that everyone is much
more sensitive, due to the processer power it can consume. Dir you
run across any stats regarding usage of just web mail when it is
offered on a fre site like yahoo?
|
Clarification of Answer by
joseleon-ga
on
16 Feb 2004 05:37 PST
Hello, jamiedolan:
Unfortunately, it's also very hard calculate how much resources a
PHP application needs, because it also depends on a lot of factors,
but in any case, in a PHP application which doesn't perform many
background processes (like SquirrelMail) is more important the RAM of
the server, because apache eats a lot for each instance it spawns.
In short, the answer to your question is:
-Setup a basic system
-Upgrade as you need
Or if you want to avoid some upgrades, just rent the higher system you
can pay, the bigger the system, the best will perform.
Maybe you think is a dumb solution, I have heard of systems to test
webservers in stress conditions, but according to my experience, the
best you can do is to upgrade when you need it.
A starter configuration can be:
Pentium 4 2.4 GHz
512 MB RAM
80 GB HD
And change to a dual processor when you think the site goes slow.
Regards.
|
