Martin, Eric wrote:
A large part of it is the learning, that's one of the things that got me into comptuers in the first place. I know it sounds crazy, but I want to deal with the headaches of a mailserver, and possibly 2 DNS servers if I can run them. Basically it comes down to wanting the expirience of bringing up a mail server and dealing with real problems...
That's a great approach, but do appreciate that in making some early mistakes, you can easily wind up with your system used to relay spam en-masse, or worse. I would recommend a slow and thorough approach, along with a fail-back option if something doesn't work as expected. Get the firewall working and tested as step 1. Have someone knowledgeable help with testing as you go. Unfortunately, the 'net has become a dangerous place for learning these days, and mistakes are quickly exploited. Or you could simply never make mistakes. :) - Bob