I’ve been using basically the same approach for my personal mail for over twelve years – a curses-based client (currently mutt), mail storage in mbox format and reading my mail on the mail server itself, logged in via ssh. As can well be imagined, it’s starting to get a little long in the tooth:

  • The mbox format has a number of limitations (locking, performance, etc), although it is convenient to have a mail folder housed in a single file. Using mbox format also prevents me from using a client that doesn’t support it.
  • I have no convenient external access to my mail – if I’m not with a laptop, trying to read mail via an ssh connection from a mobile phone is rather uncomfortable.

To finally move into the 21st century, over the past few weeks I’ve put in place a new Sun Ultra 2 mail server, running NetBSD/sparc64. Over the next few days I’ll be discussing the configuration of the new server, focusing in particular on some of the challenges faced when using a slightly, er, unusual platform.

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