[ale] NUC vs. RPi mail server

Ted W. ted-lists at xy0.org
Fri Dec 12 11:55:40 EST 2014


On 12/11/2014 04:06 PM, Alex Carver wrote:
> Good question.  Most troublesome IP ranges are dropped at the router
> ahead of the machine.  Any IP range that I can't outright drop are
> usually managed by the RBL lookups performed during HELO/EHLO plus a few
> ACLs running to clean up some other problem issues (missing FQDN,
> attempt to use localhost as the HELO/EHLO host, etc.)  I don't run
> spamassassin on my current server.
>
> I have many aliases set up on the machine but for the most part it's
> been relatively clear of spam (maybe two to three messages per week
> sneak through) except for the alias that AT&T managed to somehow leak to
> the outside world (a unique alias based on randomly generated text from
> pwgen).
>
> I'm looking at this again since the current machine just experienced
> another issue with its hard drive.  I'm going to need to take it down
> this weekend to boot from a live CD to do a scan of the drive but I'm
> thinking another (quieter) machine might worth an upgrade.  The current
> system is a 233 MHz P2.  Most of its noise is the hard drive and power
> supply fan (the processor doesn't have a fan, just a heatsink).
>
> On 2014-12-11 12:28, Horkan Smith wrote:
>> How's your spam situation look?
>>
>> A few years ago, my approx 1GHz Pentium-something? server was spending too much cpu filtering messages in spamassassin, even after moving to spamc.  Granted, my mail email address escaped to the spam world a while ago, and I also tend to accept lots of aliased addresses.
>>
>> There were other drivers (I wanted to play w/ virtual machines more), but I swapped to a then-current 4-core AMD Phenom 9650 and was much happier.
>>
>> later!
>>     horkan
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 11:53:13AM -0800, Alex Carver wrote:
>>> For a personal mail server that doesn't handle much traffic (less than
>>> 100 messages per day), which would you consider/choose: a NUC or an RPi?
>>>   Mostly headless operation (except for getting console to do maintenance
>>> when remote won't work) with a very basic install (no GUI).
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>
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I've been thinking on this very topic for a few weeks now myself. I'm 
currently hosting my mail server on a super economy RackSpace cloud 
instance that has the same specs (256MB RAM, 10GB disk, single proc) as 
a RaspberryPi and it runs fine there. Granted, I can count the number of 
spam messages I receive per month on one hand... A NUC sounds like 
overkill IMO. If you think you more power to handle some additional 
functionality, check out the BeagleBone Black or BananaPi. Both are just 
slightly more expensive with much better processors and more RAM. I've 
been interested in the BananaPi for some time as it's the same board as 
the Model B RPi with a SATA controller, GigE, a better processor and 
more RAM.

Cheers,
-- 
Ted W. <ted at xy0.org>


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