[LUGSB] Email management

[Erez Zadok]

Setting up a mail client (aka an MUA) can be hard.  I opt for stability:
something old and good and stable.  I've used MH which stores one message
per file in a separate folder, b/c it allows me a lot of flexibility and
also reduces the chance of corrupting mbox files.

Setting up mail servers is a lot more of a pain than setting up clients.
Primarily you have to worry about anti* filtering on incoming/outgoing.
Setting the SMTP server and DNS is relatively easy: setting them up securely
is 90% of the work these days.  After years of spending time to do it on my
own, I got fed up and got a commercial box for my lab (from Barracuda
Networks).

Unless you have a lot of time to spare, I don't recommend setting up mail
services on your own.  Many sites these days are offloading this hassle to a
service based company of sorts: it turns out to be cheaper in the long run.

That's why gmail et al are nice b/c they do a lot of that filtering on their
own, provide a reasonable interface, and ample quota.

We looked into gmail here on campus.  Alas, gmail violates FERPA b/c (1)
they expressly say they'd scan the email and (2) they allow emails to be
replicated/offloaded outside the US.  Some universities overseas have
decided it's safe to use gmail; others, primarily in the US, decided it's
not usable.  Google reportedly offers some deal that complies with FERPA,
but it costs so much, one might as well look at all other available
commercial email offloading services (e.g., from AT&T, IBM, and others).

Erez.