I graduate in November and then I can grow up and get a job.
I have been attending a UNIX course in school the past few weeks. This week we have been studying some cost configurations in running UNIX and Linux for various network serving roles. A topic that came up was the benefit of using the free Linux distributions and related software for low cost server operations. I have a home network, and I think I count as a low cost operation. I will not spend excessive money on my network, and I have never felt compelled to spend money because software I need could be obtained for free.
For example, my primary server at home routes email, serves several web sites, and acts as a router between the public Internet and my home network. It is a big server. I run Fedora Core 3 as my operating system.
The email routing incorporates dovecot, sendmail, amavisd-new, SpamAssassin, and ClamAV. The last three of these programs working in tandem keep dangerous email for passing through my server. The spam analyzer learns the difference betweeen wanted and unwanted email, while the open source ClamAV scanner automatically checks for updated virus signatures every hour. The amavisd program acts as the mediator between the spam and virus services and my email server. The best part is that tainted email is rejected in real time while the sender is trying to move it to my server.
As a network router, my giant egg basket of a server watches both incoming and outgoing connections for suspicious activity on all network adapters using Snort.
What would I pay to recreate this configuration with commercial software?