Amahi Forums

New to this completely today after looking for a replacement to my Windows Home Server install as it seems to be in need of a rebuild so thought I would do some research into what's available - found Amahi so thanks to all those who have worked to make it as easy as it is to get up and running.

However a couple of quick questions (well I hope they are quick)

First up - setting up an email server that is compatible with Outlook 2007
We have two accounts on the laptop with their own email setups (I have my own internet domain and hosting so option to add many accounts). I am looking to see if there is anyway I can move the mail storage onto the server permanently so that I can access my archive via webmail or from one of my other two PCs without the need to keep going back to the laptop. Is there a Amahi recommended mail server that could be used in this way? I am not massively familiar with Linux mail other than using some stuff via terminal previously to send emails, probably looking for a Exchange Server equivalent really but would only need to be able to store mail and contacts - not fussed about meetings/calendar functionality.

Second - suspend, hibernate, wakeup ?
I currently have my windows server configured so that it closes down overnight between 2am and 10am as it's very rare that I am up at that time and need access to anything on the server. It just goes into a suspend state then automatically wakes up in the morning according to a set schedule. Having a brief look through the settings on the Amahi web end after setting it up it doesn't appear to have this sort of thing out the box - is there any way to add that? Something with a web based gui would be good so that I can remote administer it from my other machines - say if I am working late and I want to keep the server up for an extra hour or something.

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Chris

First up: a server should NOT be compatible with your client, it should be the other way around. Standards are there for a reason. As long as both adhere to the standards (e.g. POP3, IMAP for retrieving mail, SMTP for sending mail) any server and any client should work.

For retrieving mail from your domain and forwarding it to the local mailserver you can use fetchmail.
This should be available through the normal fedora repositories ("yum install fetchmail" should do the trick, configuring is a different story, haven't used it so don't know).
I don't know if your domain already has anti-spam / av-scanning enabled, but if not I strongly recommend installing spamassassin & clam-av so you'll have server-based filtering/scanning instead of relying on the clients.

Then you'll need a POP3/IMAP server, you can pick any that is available in the Fedora repositories. Dovecot/Cyrus will both work fine.
I'm not sure wether there is a contacts web-app for amahi available (I know a few other projects that have it) but having a local "Exchange Server" replacement is no easy task. I've looked into some available solutions (mostly OpenExchange) but they are quite difficult to set up and configure properly (if you think sendmail is difficult to set up by hand, you should really take a look at this , sendmail is a walk in the park after that).

suspend/hibernate: I haven't checked into that (ever) but here is a little info about that on Fedora8/9/10 here: http://mhensler.de/swsusp/

good luck!

Second - suspend, hibernate, wakeup ?
I currently have my windows server configured so that it closes down overnight between 2am and 10am as it's very rare that I am up at that time and need access to anything on the server. It just goes into a suspend state then automatically wakes up in the morning according to a set schedule. Having a brief look through the settings on the Amahi web end after setting it up it doesn't appear to have this sort of thing out the box - is there any way to add that? Something with a web based gui would be good so that I can remote administer it from my other machines - say if I am working late and I want to keep the server up for an extra hour or something.
Chris

For this, I can offer a temporary solution:

In most BIOS's there is an option to "automatically turn on"
at a certain time of the day.

You can set that to 10am or whatever time you like.

As for when you are done, you can simpye type (as root):
And the system will shut down.

You can also set a "crontab" to automatically shutdown no matter
what you are doing:
i THINK this is the correct crontab to shut down at 02:00.

there may well be a command to hibernate with a future wake up time that can be set in that crontab.
that would save the BIOS step.

i used to be a bit of a guru of hibernation and suspend to RAM at the system level, however, i am not sure how it;'s done in Fedora these days. maybe the folks in the #fedora channel can give us a tip or two.

this is something we can automate in amahi, since it's useful and also helps keep the environment green! patches anyone?

or type crontab -e as root (to edit your crontab)
add the following line: Esc, :wq to save & exit

@daily will shut the system down at 00:00 or 00:02 (depending on your crond config)

nice!!!
(i am old school, rusty)