Managing Systems and Workgroups: A Guide for HP-UX System Administrators

Configuring a System
Setting Up Mail Services
Chapter 3 275
✓ Traffic between local machines (within the
workgroup) does not have to travel through the hub
computer because each client can send and receive
its own electronic mail. Therefore if the hub goes
down or becomes overloaded, local mail traffic is
unaffected (only mail to and from computers
outside of the workgroup is affected).
✓ Greater privacy for electronic mail users on the
client machines. Data is not stored in a central
repository.
Disadvantages:
✓ Each computer needs to run its own copy of the
sendmail daemon to “listen” for incoming mail.
✓ Electronic mail from and to the outside world must
travel through the hub, which could become a
bottleneck if the mail traffic is heavy.
If the hub is down, clients cannot send and receive
mail to and from computers outside of the work
group.
Fully Distributed Each computer in your workgroup independently
sends and receives its own electronic mail.
Advantages:
✓ There is no hub computer to contend with in this
setup. Every computer, whether local to the
workgroup or not, can send and receive electronic
mail directly with every other computer in the
network that also supports electronic mail.
✓ Greater privacy for electronic mail users on the
individual machines. Data is not stored in a central
repository.
Disadvantages:
✓ Because each computer (from an electronic mail
perspective) is connected directly to the outside
world, there is an increased data security risk.