Providing Net services for the new flat

[ciphergoth]

Geek-only content follows. We currently have cable Internet, with a Linux box providing firewalling and NAT to get the rest of the flat online. Email, web pages, domain hosting etc are done through a colocated box (antipope.org) on which I've configured bind, exim and apache appropriately. It's not this way purely out of geek snobbery - this is actually the only way of providing these things that I actually understand.

However, now we're going our separate ways this probably isn't the most sensible way to do things. When purplerabbits and sibelian move to their new flat, I'd like to set stuff up so they're independent of whatever solutions I have set upon antipope.org.

If I am thinking of it all correctly, they need:

1. A broadband connection (no cable where they're going so this has to be ADSL)
2. Some way of spreading the Internet goodness to all the computers in the flat (eg a NAT box)
3. At least three POP or IMAP accessible email boxes, one for each flatmate
4. Name server records for at least three domains
5. Static web pages for each domain
6. A way of sending outgoing email with a From: field from any domain they own
7. Arbitrary forwarding of many email addresses in those domains, to their own POP/IMAP boxes or to other addresses (eg to me).

So what should they do to get the above services,and how much will it cost? Should they get their ADSL provider to do the lot, and if so which provider should they go to? Should I configure a Linux box to provide NAT as before, or should they get a router and several real IP addresses - in which case, how should they do firewalling? The names are currently registered with gandi.net - can/should they stay that way or will one ISP want to do name registration on top of everything else?

What haven't I thought of?

This is all a bit of a step into the unknown for me, and none of the people in the new flat are serious techies, so straightforward, well understood solutions are very much to be preferred over interesting, innovative, or technically neat ones.

Update: I really appreciate the responses I'm getting here, they're very helpful, please keep them coming!

Comments

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

I have terrible geek skills but I like geek results, so here is what I went for:

• DSL "connection only" package (solo) from Demon. This means you buy your own modem and they just provide the bandwidth. Lots of people offer them, including cheap but insufferable pipex and interestingly priced Metronet.
• Netgear DG814 DSL modem and 4-port gateway/router. Costs about £100. Works. Looks silver. can't have everything.
• Email service from port995.com. At these prices you get POP, IMAP, and web-mail access (Squirrelmail) from any ISP. You just pay for the space and can set up any number of mailboxes you want. You can have addresses@your.domains if you have the domains and can point port995.com as the MX server. All this can be set up through a reasonable web interface.
• I've registered my domain with just-the-name but haven't got anything special, good or bad, to say about them. Reasonable web interface.

I don't know what is a good web hosting service. Also, I have a Linksys 4-port router (BEFSR41) that I can donate to the new flat, but it expects a 10-base T line for the uplink. OK if you have a DSL modem with an ether port, useless otherwise.

Pavlos