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Portable Mail Server

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keycoke
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Portable Mail Server

I think Portable Mail server is a good idea. I used hMailServer (simple admin interface and user friendly) for my pc but that appears to write to registry.

Thanks to devel

ottosykora
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server?

somehow not sure what should an portable mail server do, but this might be anyway rather difficult to do, since a complete server will have to install services so portability might not be possible in the partableapps context.

What should the server do? Just keep port 25 of your computer open and listen for any requests for SMTP protocol and leave port 110 open for calls for the pop3 protocol?

Note , that this will anyway not work on most internet access ways, since you are mostly behind a router with NAT, you have to arrange DMZ on your router/firewall to be able to reach such server somehow. Therefore mailserver portable can be under normal circumstances only between two computers in same local net, which makes the use somehow questionable.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

keycoke
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Yes, Portable Mail Server

I think it can. I can and everyone can make HTTP, FTP, and MYSQL to portable, why POP, IMAP, and SMTP cannot? I have try to make Argo Mail Server to be portable, and successfully. But I don't like Argo Mail Server, so I'm not use it.

[sorry for my poor english]

robojerk
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why?

I have try to make Argo Mail Server to be portable, and successfully.
Any reason why you have to do this? I believe most people view a mail server as one of those things that should not be portable and always available.

Maybe if you explained what you're planning.

ottosykora
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no problem

to make it portable, but problem to use it.

A mail server needs so called MX entry to be in the domain name server, otherwise I can not imagine how it can work.

So each time you stick the 'server ' to a new computer, you have to access the DNS of that network or provider, make the entry for the mail server, wait 1 or two days until the entry does propagate in internet amd then you can use it.
Whe you finish the use, you have to make all the entries delete, wait two days and then you can start on other computer.
Even when you set up your own DNS, you have to do all this each time you are going to use it.

Is this what you call portable?

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

John T. Haller
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Mostly Useless

It would be mostly useless. Nearly all internet providers block outgoing port 25 connections, which is what a mail server needs to be able to send mail. And, since your IP would change whenever you were offline and you wouldn't be online all the time with a portable app, it wouldn't be useful as a receiving server either. So, basically, there's not much point.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

keycoke
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misunderstand

I think all of you have misunderstand about it.
The portable mail server I mean is just for web developer use.
So the server will not really use for real mail server (mean: just for testing use)
I know what are you talking about. I'm a web developer, web administrator, computer technician, so I know about that.

fiuh...

ottosykora
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aha!

so will plan to carry your complete domain name server with you as well?
What you will communicate with? Just the stick to the stick itself? From a webserver running on the stick to mail server running on the stick, consulting the dns on your stick each time and operating with services running on the windows?
Or between some virtual machines perhaps? This would make sense.
remember: servers of this kind under windows need to be run as services in most cases too.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

ottosykora
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ddid you try XAMPP?

XAMPP suite is collection of clients and servers for development purposes and can be copied to a stick and carried around.
However, the servers are often complex items, need to run as services, will therefore make number of entries in registry here and there.
The linking of all the parts is also not clear all the time, but lot of work has been done by the authors to connect all this parts together so they will work at least somehow locally with each other.

BTW: I dont know why you are against Argo, this is one of the very simple once and is small and rather simple, still having most of the features todays servers are expected to have. OK, the configuration might be sometimes little bit difficult to follow, but probably still more simple then other products. And it is free!
We are even running with it a rather high traffic server collecting data for a database and forwarding them to other server, work nice and stable.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

mhonline
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go ahead please

I think it is a good idea

being in a small net with no dedicated server it might be a good idea to have one for colaborative work with zero overhead available.

Martin

ottosykora
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get XAMPP

and there you have all you need for such project, mailserver, webserver, and other things, all can be used in kind of portable way

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

ottosykora
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get XAMPP

and there you have all you need for such project, mailserver, webserver, and other things, all can be used in kind of portable way

sorry for doubleposting

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

sm6gqw
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Not only for usb-stick

I using a lot of program from portableapps, but only e few is on my memory stick. Also this is a nice part of PA, it is free and most is open code.

I think I run more than 25 portable program on my hard disk. Why, it run fine and backup is easy to done. On memory stick I have only firefox, thunderbird, keepass and some other.

Today I run Ability Mail Server on computer and all setup is on its own directory (possible to using database). When I change hard disk, move it to other computer, I have only to make a copy of its directory. In new computer I have only to make a link and it is up and running Smile

All I have to do, when change, is in my router, change what locale computer run the server.

My license for Ability will run out at end of this year and it wold be great if there is a portable and free mail server at that time!

Hope you understand my English, Björn

Ps, Mercury in XAMPP is to hard for me to understand with 13-14 window to configure, ds

ottosykora
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as you say

you have to set up router and other things, well it needs the mx entry in at least the local dns, it has nothing to do with any portable way of using it. You have to make installation steps in your network, so nothing is portable this way.
Portable means no install, no admin rights needed, no network setup, since normal user anyway has no way to do such tasks.

So a mail server does not very much fit into this category.

The Xampp , well this collection of tools is rather confusing in use, I trie dthis and that with it, but only the webserver side of it, not tried the mailserver part of it, noticed immediately that this is some complex story there.

I have so far only met ArgoSoft Mail , this is nice free app, it is server app so nothing is simple there, but I think it is still much simpler to set up then many other similar products and very stable.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

sm6gqw
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True, it is not rely portable

True, it is not rely portable but some of program on this site also put a lot of garbage in Document an Setting.

Abt ArGoSoft: "All that - at the unbeatable price of $150.00" and the free lite version is not usable for my permission.

Thank you for comments, I will still looking for free complete mail server.
/Björn

ottosykora
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we run the free

Argo in one of my previous companies, for years now. At beginning it was handling many thousands of short mails from some mobile test devices and our whole company mail. We did set it up particularly, because the ISP were not able to transport thousands similar looking encrypted mails at once, their spam filters did eat all.

Since having this Argo (free version) on one of our very old PC, it runs and runs, does all job, I have my mail account there still and it has all on it. And was not too complex to set up. We did not discover what else we would need as small company with 10 employees and about 3000-4000 Mails per day.

Sure this was originally not done for reading real mails in fact, this was just a set up to feed mails to a data base where thy were decrypted and extracted and some mails send back to the units etc. Many features as filtering etc we did not wish to use, all was done at our database then. As said, mainly for an experiment with some mobile satellite equipment where we could not find anybody to send us the amount of mails in reasonable time otherwise.
We do not use it any more, the actual company does not exist, but the PC with the server sits there still and I am using it as my emergency backup mail service when others fail.

otherwise some people take linux and 5 or 6 books on how to configure sendmail & fetchmail.... Wink

no, no, I have really better use for my leisure time then sendmail&co

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

sm6gqw
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Argo free version give me

Argo free version give me only 5 account and I need more than 40.

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