RE: Advice Required - for avoiding conflict betwen qmail-smtpd, rblsmtpd loaded as shared objects in tcpserver

Hi David.

I do think you're right about UNIX systems and caches; most Linux systems also would have caches.


On Sun, 2 Apr 2017 20:44:21 -0400, David T. Ashley wrote:
> Jens, the hardware and software scenarios you are considering ... wow ... it
> is almost like you hacked/rooted your smart coffee maker and
> are using it as a qmail server.

Shhh... I planned on making money on converting coffee makers into mail servers. ;)

To tell the truth, I was thinking about Cortex-M (something like STM32F4) as a miniature mail server.
Sure I could just "port" the stock qmail, but that would only give me IPv4, which means in the near future such a server would already be obsolete.
The STM32F4xx microcontroller is based on ARM Cortex-M4 and runs at 168 MHz or 180 MHz, which is enough for a normal home email server.
It could easily store the received data on a SD card or MicroSD card. No extra memory would be required as the STM32F4 has 192K on-chip RAM (or more, depending on the model).

Sadly, there's a problem with SD cards wearing out, which is one reason I'm not so keen on starting the project.
-But I think it would be cool to be able to purchase a ready-made email server for $20, which you can just hook up and start using.

Note: Some low-speed embedded devices are running Linux, but they have very little RAM, so such devices would most likely not have a file cache (or they would not benefit from it).

Personally I'm still running qmail on my (dying) MacMini (on-board graphics card is already dead so I deleted the driver to get a clean syslog). I've also successfully set up qmail on CubieBoard2 with debian [Armbian] (this works well and seem quicker than the Mac Mini).
CubieBoard2 is like the Raspberry Pi to me it was just more appealing having a Cortex-A7 processor than an ARM11 (at the time of purchase).
If I wanted to purchase a board today, I'd go for the Mqmaker MiQi, Globalscale ExpressoBin or even the Solid-Run MacchiatoBIN board ... but that's off-topic. ;)


Love
Jens