On Mon 10 Mar 2025 at 06:48:33 (+0000), Russell L. Harris wrote: > On Sun, Mar 09, 2025 at 08:04:58PM -0500, David Wright wrote: > > > > In this context, my understanding of an Internet mail server can be > > illustrated in the following way. If your "machine in the LAN" > > receives emails by asking for them from another machine, then it's not > > an IMS. If you can switch off the machine for a week or two and yet > > not lose any emails, then it's not an IMS. > > I stand corrected regarding "server" and "provider". But is there a > term for the machines in the LAN devoted to a specific task?
There are terms matching services provided in the usual manner, eg, DHCP server, firewall, etc. Otherwise, just call them what you like when they're internal to your LAN. > Examples: > > = mail gatherer (using getmail) for all mail addresses From what you've written, it sounds as if it's just a mailstore (if the emails stay on the one machine), or a distribution or delivery service if it sends emails on another hop to several other machines on the LAN. Running an Internet mail server is no trivial task, and if you screw up, you can lose (a) emails and (b) your reputation among your peers. It's confusing to people helping you if you conflate that particular task with the sorts of things that you and I are doing on a LAN. (All my machines run exim4 to forward all emails to one particular host, my mailstore. I only read them with clients running on that one machine.) > = weather station data gatherer which obtains latest weather > parameters, creates fresh web pages, and uploads web pages to a web > site on my ISP weather uploader? > = machine which runs approx to cache Debian package files local mirror, or package cacher? > = machine which manages the git archives for the LAN local git server? Your choice. Cheers, David.
