Backup-restore system : MailMan : required platform : planning

[jim]

     For anyone who's interested, this email  thread
concerns blather about __planning__ to set up a
backup-restore system to capture
LinuxMafia/MailMan/SF-LUG (and perhaps other
LUGs). Comments are most welcome.


Goal
     The goal is to build a backup-restore system that
includes a MailMan instance to verify that backup data
is valid for the LinuxMafia host's implementation of
MailMan.

Platform Requirements
     Before installing MailMan and any particular backup-
restore software, it's essential to define the platform
on which the system runs.
* What kind of hardware? Hopefully any ol' box that
    runs a suitable release of Linux and has sufficient
    (reliable) storage and RAM.
* An appropriate release of Linux, i.e. one that sufficiently
    matches the OS on LinuxMafia (best to use the same
    release; probably de rigueur to use the same distro;
    good practice to install only the required software rather
    than everything that ships with that release).
        The kernel should be appropriate for server use. The
    toolkit requires discussion (as do libs and mods, etc.).
* Given the appropriate kernel and general toolkit (/bin/*,
    /sbin/* ... /lib/* ...), my guess is that it's necessary to
    install some kind of email server system (such as
        Dovecot-Postfix
        http://www.hypexr.org/linux_mail_server.php ,
        i.e. whatever email server system is running on the
        LinuxMafia host.
        (NOTE: I, jim, have a horked, only partially properly
        config'd Dovecot-Postfix system running on one of my
        internet-accessible machines; it receives email and
        allows tranfer to my email client, Thunderbird, which
        runs on my Ubuntu 12.x laptop, and my server system
        will accept outbound email from my client but bombs
        when it tries to forward email to another internet node.)

        Let's defer discussion of the issue of whether this
    proposed system should be internet-facing.

     As to LinuxMafia host hardware, OS, and software,
the info should include
* make and model of the hardware as well as minimum
    reasonable RAM and storage
* Linux distro and release
* kernel build
* required libs, mods, and tools
* email server system
* MailMan release
     Anything else?