Hi all, I am thinking about offering simple, standard web hosting for my clients. My question is, what would i need exactly so i can offer email accounts, etc. I presently have a 1meg DSL connection, so that should be ok. i am just confused on how to go about offering email accounts to the clients. For example, if a client has a domain, say xxx.com, is it as simple as creating email accounts (via an email server on my PC) using user1@xxx.com, user2@xxx.com, etc. No ISP permission or fees involved?? Are there any free (Windows) mail servers out there that are easy to run? i've found a few, but they seem rather complex. thanks guys.

In my opinion you should check into root servers, managed servers, or reseller accounts. This is because when you start using your own web and email servers you need good upload and download speeds, static IP addresses, you would most likely need a dns server as well. you mentioned you had a 1mb dsl connection, most dsl connections have decent download speeds but upload speeds are about half of that speed. when you are hosting websites you will be uploading files while the end users are downloading the files. The end users can only download at the speed of the websites upload speed. I have never set up my own web hosting sites but I have set up intranets and appache (linux web server)is a popular web server. The only windows mail server I know of is exchange, you might want to look at using linux for these services as well (cost would be a lot less). A good starting point for directing emails is looking into MX record (mail exchange record). This record is used by DNS servers to direct emails to the mail servers. I usually manage the sites I design so I just use a large hosting package and charge customers for storage, website maintance and updates. there are alot of reseller packages on the web. I have been looking into reseller accounts at hostdepartment.com but have never used them. They almost look to good to be true. I hoped this helped a little

thanks man, very helpful indeed. ;-)