This mail server is based on a distribution of LRP (Linux Router Project), ver 3.1.0.  The main idea behind its creation was to show the capability of the IP products, without spending on Microsoft.  The overwhelming cost for software to give such a demonstration would cripple any effort before it could even get off the ground.  LRP is completely free, fits on a floppy, and for the most part, easy to configure.  Please see the Copyright information at the bottom of this document

LRP uses .lrp modules, essentially are highly compressed files based on a stripped down version of Linux.  Modules can be added or removed, depending on the desire and intention of the creator.  Many projects use lrp modules such as DNScache, dhcp client, dhcp server, TinyDns and Boa webserver.  There are more modules available, and with a little bit of searching on the internet, it is entirely possible to create your own flavour of LRP.  (a good place to start would be lrp.steinkuehler.net)

Our flavour of this incredible distro allows any user to insert a floppy into a Pentium class machine, with one of the recommended NICs (Network Interface Cards) and 32mb Ram, and start an IP product demonstration.  No configuration required.  The users have already been configured within LRP, a link to them is available via the installation page.  The LRP module included here is Qmail (Qmail.lrp), which provides SMTP and POP3 services to the router.  The IP product will need to be configured to retrieve and send email from the Server; its IP on the network will be 192.168.10.60.  It will service the whole 10 dot subnet. (192.168.10.1 - 192.168.10.255).

We have tried to make this Mail server easy to install and configure.  To do this, we have all included everything in the email.exe self extracting file. Once the self extraction process has been completed, the floppy is ready for use.  Intall it into a pc and start sending mail!

UPDATE - October 21 2007
I've modified the Linux Mail Server to include the NIC module pcnet32
This allow the Linux Mail Server to run as a VMware guest
More details here

Please note:  As great as this little distro is for our intentions, it is not a replacement for high end commercial products.  Although it can do many things, it cannot provide the security and feasibility of a large scale deployment of a real mail server.  The system uses a RAM disk, set at 30000K (30 Megabytes), where everything is stored.  Once the server is powered down, any information, such as email, will be lost unless backed up to a storage medium by the administrator.

System Requirements:
Pentium Class computer
32 Mb of ram
Network Card ( NE 2000 compatible with I/O=300, 3com 3C509b with Plug and Play disable, 3C905) other cards are included but not tested yet.
Floppy drive

Installation:
Download the self extracting file email.exe.
Double click on the file downloaded and place a floppy disk on your computer floppy drive.
Press Enter to continue, the utility will format the floppy to 1.68Mb and create the server.
Place the floppy just create on the computer that will be use as a Email server ( make sure the computer has supported a network cards)
The Linux server will boot, configure youe E-mail clients following the chart below
The IP Address of this server is 192.168.10.60, This IP could be changed using the lrcfg utility.
For more information on the Email server type from your browser http://192.168.10.60

 

SMTP Server IP Address	192.168.10.60
POP3 Server IP Address	192.168.10.60

 

User ID	E-mail Address	Password
ir5000i	ir5000i@canon.net	ir5000i
ir6000i	ir6000i@canon.net	ir6000i
user1	user1@canon.net	user1
user2	user2@canon.net	user2
user3	user3@canon.net	user3
user4	user4@canon.net	user4
user5	user5@canon.net	user5
user6	user6@canon.net	user6
user7	user7@canon.net	user7
user8	user8@canon.net	user8

The Linux Mail Server is based on Dan Bernstein's Qmail program
Qmail is copyrighted by the author, Dan Bernstein, and is not distributed with a statement of user's rights.
In http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html, he outlines what he thinks your rights are under U.S. copyright law.
In http://cr.yp.to/qmail/dist.html he grants the right to distribute qmail source code.
Binary distributions are allowed under the terms described there and in http://cr.yp.to/qmail/var-qmail.html.

5.  I want to virtualize the Linux Mail Server
Great, so did I.
The perfect solution is to recreate this LRP distro with the necessary hard disk drivers to simulate a hard disk
Perhaps I'll do that later, this site shows some pretty good information on how (http://chinese-watercolor.com/LRP/)

For now, I simply investigated the NIC that VMware simulates and found the appropriate module name
This version of the Linux Mail Server runs linux kernel 2.2.16 thus I had to find a module for that version
I then added the module to the Linux Mail Server floppy image using Winimage
Finally I booted the image under VMware, mounted the floppy copied the module and configured accordingly
All is the same as if I had a real physical machine of course

So now I've got a Linux Mail Server floppy disk image that works under VMware Server, Workstation and Player, woohoo
You can download a VMware Player compressed guest here
If you want to make your own VMware or other virtualization environment, simply point your virtual machine to the floppy disk image email-vm.ima contained in the Email-VM.rar file above

6.  I'm getting martian source errors, what do they mean?
The messages are harmless except for cluttering up your screen and/or log files.
The documentation in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/proc.txt apparently explains this
See /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/*interface*/log_martians
I tried this echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/eth0/log_martians
Unfortunately it is not saved with the LRP backups and lost after a reboot
I hacked it for the VMware floppy image by editing the /etc/network.conf
Change this
if_setproc $1 log_martians $IP_KRNL_LOGMARTIANS
To this
#if_setproc $1 log_martians $IP_KRNL_LOGMARTIANS

7.  I'd like another alternative for an email server.
Try Java Mail Server (http://sourceforge.net/projects/jmailsrv/)
It's crazy small and so simple to use