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Date:	Mon, 5 May 2003 12:16:40 PDT7
From:	Peter Skye <pskye@peterskye.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: Re: Private Mail Server

Content Type: text/plain

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J. R. Fox wrote:
>
> EarthLink is on my checklist of possible DSL replacements

Earthlink has a quirk with their DSL. I forget what it is but I
remember something about incompatibility with something or other. I
think it's some kind of ethernet translation or something like that.

> I've asked you this a couple times in
> the past, but never got an answer.

I've always answered your questions, Jordan . . .

> If you're running your own mail server, does it need to be up
> on some machine 24/7, or can you just bring it up whenever
> you boot up OS/2, with no loss of mail or functionality ?

I only use my own mail server for _outgoing_ mail, so it only needs to
be running when I click on "Send". I have it in my Startup Folder and
it's always running when my machine is on.

My _incoming_ email server is at my ISP (Verizon). I don't use my own
email server for incoming mail.

If you run your own incoming mail server then it's a good idea to run it
24x7 on a different box, so that when you reboot your main machine you
don't interrupt any incoming email transaction. It will work if you
don't have it running 24x7 but it's likely to delay a lot of your email
because your incoming messages won't be "ready" for you to download when
you boot up and may not be ready for hours or days (PacBell Email Backup
can take one to three days to deliver messages that can't get through
when first sent). Here's what happens: Some Duck somewhere sends you
an email by pecking on his Send button. The message is sent to _his_
ISP's email server and stored on the ISP's hard drive. The ISP's email
server then looks at the message header, finds the target address, and
tries to contact the target's email server. If the target email server
responds then the message is sent to the target and stored on the
target's hard drive, and the sending server erases the message from its
hard drive. When the target user (you) get your messages from your ISP,
the message is written to your hard drive and your ISP erases it from
its hard drive. *However*, if you are running your own incoming email
server then the email server at the sender's ISP can't connect and
forward the message so it is "queued" and the server will try again
later. "Later" is an amount of time configured by the ISP's webmaster.
Some servers wait 30 minutes, some wait 4 hours, some wait 12 hours.
Suppose you turn on your machine, wait 10 minutes, check for incoming
email, and then turn it back off -- then you won't get some of these
messages. Suppose your machine is on most of the time but happens to be
off at the moments that some other server tries to contact you. You may
not see the message for quite a while. After typically 5 days of
attempts, an undelivered message is sent back to the sender.

- Peter

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