ejbehr@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Eric Behr) (03/21/91)
Hello; we are a small-ish Mac based department (ca. 60 faculty & staff Macs). For several reasons we don't want to rely on central University services for outside connectivity, mail, etc. We also can't afford a full time system person to take care of a departmental mini. That's why we are inclined towards setting up a Mac SE/30 running A/UX to provide POP & SMTP service, maybe a local copy of news, etc. 1) Is this cost effective (we have good edu. discounts) compared to, say, a SparcStation or some such beast? 2) Is it reliable, i.e. are A/UX ports of sendmail, popper, rn, etc. quite stable? (I've heard they are) 3) Is the SE/30's RAM limitation (8MB) a big problem when running A/UX? Note that we probably won't have more than 2 or 3 users logged on at once. 4) Since we want to get a 300MB drive for that Mac, what are the caveats? I.e. which drives to avoid due to formatting hassles? Or can I format most any drive for Unix using SilverLining (we have it)? 5) Is it reasonable to plan to do backups on removable Syquest drives? How do they behave under A/UX? 6) I've never seen A/UX in action: how does file security look? I.e. is it possible to set up a Mac with A/UX so it looks like e.g. VAXStation and shows you a blank screen with a login dialog? Or can a malicious person with physical access to the machine mess up system software? Thanks a lot for comments, suggestions, experiences! Eric -- Eric Behr, Illinois State University, Mathematics Department Internet: ejbehr@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu Bitnet: ebehr@ilstu