Raspberry Pi Mail Server?

[AngryRooster]

You are incredibly lucky. Many rural WISPs have built out their infrastructure incorrectly or inadequately. I ran into one in the Wabash area that was run by the owner of the Ace hardware franchise. He had one public IP for ALL customers, and he told me what I was asking him to do was impossible. It was far from impossible, but not necessarily likely for him to approve. When he said it was impossible I didnt bother pressing any further. He obviously didnt know what he was doing. The one running out of Kokomo on the other hand was incredibly easy to work with... even sending out a tech to run a cable directly down the tower from his backhaul radio so we could have a hard wired connection to our customer's equipment.

The one here is run by our only local computer sales and repair shop. They seem to know what they are doing. We've been pretty happy with them. I started out with one of the limited family plans, it had a monthly data cap. I was trying different Linux distros and watched a few movies online. I got to the data cap pretty quick. I changed the package to the next higher one, it still had a data cap. It ran $59 a month with a 50Gb cap. I tired quickly of keeping track of what I used when I was trying to watch Netflix. I talked to them about the business plan. Unlimited data, much higher speed, static IP, for $99 a month. Additional $5 a month for a protection plan. ANYTHING happens to the equipment and it's covered and replaced. Already needed it when a 40' TV tower broke and fell last fall taking the equipment with it. I called them and had new and faster equipment up and working in 2 days.

At $105 a month it's not cheap, but compare it to dial up (which we would have to add a home phone for) and satellite with it's horrible lag time and data caps as well. Those are the only 3 choices we have.

 

[Cameramonkey]

The one here is run by our only local computer sales and repair shop. They seem to know what they are doing. We've been pretty happy with them. I started out with one of the limited family plans, it had a monthly data cap. I was trying different Linux distros and watched a few movies online. I got to the data cap pretty quick. I changed the package to the next higher one, it still had a data cap. It ran $59 a month with a 50Gb cap. I tired quickly of keeping track of what I used when I was trying to watch Netflix. I talked to them about the business plan. Unlimited data, much higher speed, static IP, for $99 a month. Additional $5 a month for a protection plan. ANYTHING happens to the equipment and it's covered and replaced. Already needed it when a 40' TV tower broke and fell last fall taking the equipment with it. I called them and had new and faster equipment up and working in 2 days.

At $105 a month it's not cheap, but compare it to dial up (which we would have to add a home phone for) and satellite with it's horrible lag time and data caps as well. Those are the only 3 choices we have.

Depending on how many you have in your house, try a not unlimited plan at a lower data rate if you want to save a little? Most people dont realize that unless you need multiple HD streams anything over 10mb/sec is wasteful. Most content providers limit the stream bandwidth on their end to prevent their servers from melting down. So you could have a gigabit uplink, and still only get stuff like CNN.com pages at 1mbit/sec. (but if all three of you surfed to the same page you would each get it at 1mbit for a total of 3). Sure if you need to download that linux ISO its not as fast, but other than Netflix most of your traffic doesnt really NEED the full bandwidth 95% of the time that places like Comcast offer at over 50/sec.

I had a buddy that was having problems with data caps so he throttled his router WAN port down to 10mbits and shut off HD on netflix. (it was just him and his wife and they gave him 25) He only saw real significant differences when downloading large files, and never exceeded his cap again.

Count your blessings. I know of folks in similar situations where their only option is Hughesnet Satellite. Even more expensive than yours, slower, AND data caps. I think they get extra data during off peak so they can schedule downloads like windows updates at 3am, but for the most part it sucks. But like you said, better than dialup.

 

[AngryRooster]

Depending on how many you have in your house, try a not unlimited plan at a lower data rate if you want to save a little? Most people dont realize that unless you need multiple HD streams anything over 10mb/sec is wasteful. Most content providers limit the stream bandwidth on their end to prevent their servers from melting down. So you could have a gigabit uplink, and still only get stuff like CNN.com pages at 1mbit/sec. (but if all three of you surfed to the same page you would each get it at 1mbit for a total of 3). Sure if you need to download that linux ISO its not as fast, but other than Netflix most of your traffic doesnt really NEED the full bandwidth 95% of the time that places like Comcast offer at over 50/sec.

I had a buddy that was having problems with data caps so he throttled his router WAN port down to 10mbits and shut off HD on netflix. (it was just him and his wife and they gave him 25) He only saw real significant differences when downloading large files, and never exceeded his cap again.

Count your blessings. I know of folks in similar situations where their only option is Hughesnet Satellite. Even more expensive than yours, slower, AND data caps. I think they get extra data during off peak so they can schedule downloads like windows updates at 3am, but for the most part it sucks. But like you said, better than dialup.

The business plan, which is the one I have, is the top plan they have. It maxes out at 10Mbps and is the only one that has the unlimited data. The next step down is $65 and has a 50Gb cap that runs at a max of 2048k/512. For the little price difference I thought it was worth it.

There is only the 2 of us in the house and she doesn't really watch Netflix unless I am. I have my DTV hooked up to it but really don't stream much from them or do VOD.

I wouldn't do the Hughesnet service even if it was the only thing here besides dial up. Way too slow, to expensive, and they really pizz me off with the constant nagging in the mailbox. 10 years ago I called them and asked for them to send me some information in the mail. This was before the wireless came in the area. Every week for the last 10 years I've thrown away something in the mailbox from them. I've called them and told them to stop. I've written to them and told them to stop. I even collected all the cards for the entire summer and put them into a padded envelope and sent them back to them with a letter telling them to keep their junk. It never ends, once a week something is there. I would go back to dial up before I EVER sign up with them.

 

[pudly]

If you are going to order more soon then you might want to look for the new model. It has a quad core 900 CPU and 1Gb memory from Micron. Other than that it's the same form factor as the B+ and even fits in the B+ cases. It was just released so it may take it a few weeks to hit the market.

Just FYI. This might not stop you, but the new Raspberry Pi 2 has an interesting hardware bug. If you take a snapshot of it with a Xenon light, it will freeze for a while and then reboot. Apparently other flashes and normal light do not have this affect. I'm sure they'll fix the CPU cover to correct this in the next production run.

A camera flash will make the Raspberry Pi 2 freeze and reboot - Neowin

 

[AngryRooster]

Just FYI. This might not stop you, but the new Raspberry Pi 2 has an interesting hardware bug. If you take a snapshot of it with a Xenon light, it will freeze for a while and then reboot. Apparently other flashes and normal light do not have this affect. I'm sure they'll fix the CPU cover to correct this in the next production run.

A camera flash will make the Raspberry Pi 2 freeze and reboot - Neowin

Did not know that. I guess that means I can mount it high in the rafters of the barn to take overhead video then if it needs a reboot I can take of picture of it instead of getting the ladder out, SWEET!

 

[Lebowski]

Did not know that. I guess that means I can mount it high in the rafters of the barn to take overhead video then if it needs a reboot I can take of picture of it instead of getting the ladder out, SWEET!

Can put a piece of bluetac over the u16 chip as shown below to prevent the flash issue:

That's not my photo, but if flash bulbs are a concern that's something that can be done. (Lots of electronics interestingly enough have similar issues with flash)



I've had my new RPI for about a week and a half now, going good. Took about 5 days longer than expected to get my heatsinks in, but they came in today. Since I've got this inclosed in a case and plan on overclocking it a bit figured it was best to play safe.

Sort of hard to tell, but the case isn't 100% completely enclosed. There are still slits for ribbon cables which I do not plan on using and a large cuttout for the GPIO pins.


For now mine is acting as a network bridge, bridging a WiFi connection to an old 5 port switch that has things such as my xBox, surveillance DVR, workstation and other Rasberrpy Pi connected to it. Though I may actually use the Model B for that and use this new one as a more powerful local dev server since the B suffers from lack of resources... just haven't had the time/desire/motivation to swap rolls yet.

But yeah, the new Pi kicks ass.

 

[jd42k]

Read an interesting article today about the Raspberry Pi 2.

Raspberry Pi 2 Review: A $35 Computer Can Do a Heck of a Lot - WSJ

I've not used one before but have wanted to get one and see what it can do.

 

[AngryRooster]

Read an interesting article today about the Raspberry Pi 2.

Raspberry Pi 2 Review: A $35 Computer Can Do a Heck of a Lot - WSJ

I've not used one before but have wanted to get one and see what it can do.

Once I find something useful to do with the one I already have I'll probably pick up the new one. I'll have a project in mind already before I get one though.

 

[pudly]

Seven Ready-Made Raspberry Pi Projects You Can Install in a Few Clicks

 

[Sailor]

Once I find something useful to do with the one I already have I'll probably pick up the new one. I'll have a project in mind already before I get one though.

Figure out how to run fldigi off it with a small display and bt keyboard to embed in qrp radios.

 

[pudly]

This looks a little more involved than some projects, but very interesting if you have the inclination:

Build Your Own Raspberry Pi Powered Weather Station

 

[AngryRooster]

This looks a little more involved than some projects, but very interesting if you have the inclination:

Build Your Own Raspberry Pi Powered Weather Station

Thanks. I may give that a try. I've wanted to set up a station here at the farm for a while, just never did it yet. I'm about done with on online Skywarn class so a weather station would be nice.