CentOS - Jun 2005 - OT: question on setting up an email server

Hi guys,
      I realize that this might be considered to be off topic, but the 
machine I want to use is running Cent OS.
      Ok, this is what I'm thinking about trying, and mainly just to see
if I can do it. I've got a total of 3 linux machines here, and I was
thinking about setting one of them up as an email server. Now, I'm not
talking about setting the machine up so that all I run on it is an email
client like thunderbird, or evolution and retrieve email from my email
account at bellsouth. What I want to try and do is set the machine up so
that my machine is the email server, and I retrieve my email from it.
Is what I'm thinking about even possible, or am I just simply having a
case of too much oxygen on the brain? If what I'm thinking about is
possible, how would I go about doing it?
Thanks
Jimmy

Jimmy Bradley wrote:
>      Hi guys,
>      I realize that this might be considered to be off topic, but the 
>machine I want to use is running Cent OS.
>      Ok, this is what I'm thinking about trying, and mainly just to see
>if I can do it. I've got a total of 3 linux machines here, and I was
>thinking about setting one of them up as an email server. Now, I'm not
>talking about setting the machine up so that all I run on it is an email
>client like thunderbird, or evolution and retrieve email from my email
>account at bellsouth. What I want to try and do is set the machine up so
>that my machine is the email server, and I retrieve my email from it.
>Is what I'm thinking about even possible, or am I just simply having a
>case of too much oxygen on the brain? If what I'm thinking about is
>possible, how would I go about doing it?
>Thanks
>Jimmy 
>
>
>  
>
Add BQ http://bluequartz.org/ to your CentOS platform and you will have 
a full f leg email server with a GUI....

Best Regards, Jon McCauley

Jimmy Bradley wrote:
>      Hi guys,
>      I realize that this might be considered to be off topic, but the 
>machine I want to use is running Cent OS.
>      Ok, this is what I'm thinking about trying, and mainly just to see
>if I can do it. I've got a total of 3 linux machines here, and I was
>thinking about setting one of them up as an email server. Now, I'm not
>talking about setting the machine up so that all I run on it is an email
>client like thunderbird, or evolution and retrieve email from my email
>account at bellsouth. What I want to try and do is set the machine up so
>that my machine is the email server, and I retrieve my email from it.
>Is what I'm thinking about even possible, or am I just simply having a
>case of too much oxygen on the brain? If what I'm thinking about is
>possible, how would I go about doing it?
>Thanks
>Jimmy 
>
>_______________________________________________
>CentOS mailing list
>CentOS at centos.org
>http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>
>.
>
>  
>
Go Here
http://www.qmailrocks.org

On Jun 19, 2005, at 9:59 PM, Jimmy Bradley wrote:
>       Ok, this is what I'm thinking about trying, and mainly just  
> to see
> if I can do it. I've got a total of 3 linux machines here, and I was
> thinking about setting one of them up as an email server. Now, I'm not
> talking about setting the machine up so that all I run on it is an  
> email
> client like thunderbird, or evolution and retrieve email from my email
> account at bellsouth. What I want to try and do is set the machine  
> up so
> that my machine is the email server, and I retrieve my email from it.
> Is what I'm thinking about even possible, or am I just simply having a
> case of too much oxygen on the brain? If what I'm thinking about is
> possible, how would I go about doing it?
since you already have a perfectly good email account at bellsouth,  
unless you want to host email service for your own domain, a full- 
fledged mail server is probably overkill.  i suspect that what you  
want is fetchmail:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/

you configure it with the login information for your bellsouth email  
account and run it as a daemon on one of your CentOS boxes; you then  
run an IMAP service (dovecot, i believe, is the server you'd be  
using) on the CentOS box to serve your mail to your local network.

you'd need some sort of solution for outgoing mail - if you can use  
bellsouth's smtp server for outgoing mail, that would be the simplest.

here's a HOWTO that may be useful:

http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/networking/fetchmail.html

-steve

---
If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an  
improbable fiction. - Fabian, Twelfth Night, III,v

Jimmy Bradley wrote:
>       Hi guys,
>       I realize that this might be considered to be off topic, but the 
> machine I want to use is running Cent OS.
>       Ok, this is what I'm thinking about trying, and mainly just to
see
> if I can do it. I've got a total of 3 linux machines here, and I was
> thinking about setting one of them up as an email server. Now, I'm not
> talking about setting the machine up so that all I run on it is an email
> client like thunderbird, or evolution and retrieve email from my email
> account at bellsouth. What I want to try and do is set the machine up so
> that my machine is the email server, and I retrieve my email from it.
> Is what I'm thinking about even possible, or am I just simply having a
> case of too much oxygen on the brain? If what I'm thinking about is
> possible, how would I go about doing it?
By default, you got MTA daemon (sendmail) installed on the system.  All 
that you need to do is to configure it to accept mail from network. 
Install sendmail-cf and sendmail-doc RPMs.  You need former to 
reconfigure sendmail.  The later is documentation.  Lot of usefull docs 
at www.sendmail.org too.

An alternative to sendmail is postfix.  It is somewhat easier to 
configure, apperently.  Postfix is also distributed with CentOS, but not 
installed by default.

Once you configure sendmail to accept email from network (by default it 
is configured not to even allow connections from remote hosts), you'll 
need a way to enable email clients to fetch email that is stored on the 
server.  There are two IMAP/POP servers distributed with CentOS.

The first is called Dovecot.  It is very basic, easy to understand and 
configure.  It has all the features that average users needs from IMAP 
server.

The second option is Cyrus.  It is fully fleged, state of the art IMAP 
server.  For experienced folks.  Can be non-trivial to configure, 
requires more administrative work than Dovecot, and you'd also need to 
reconfigure sendmail (or postfix) specifically to work with Cyrus.

My personal preference is Cyrus.  If you had some previous experience 
with this kind of stuff, I'd probably try to interest you into it too. 
However, since you obviously have no experience with email servers, I'm 
going to recommend Dovecot to you.  Cyrus only if you have extremely 
steep learning curve or if you are mazohist, or both ;-)

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On Sun, Jun 19, 2005 at 08:59:54PM -0500, Jimmy Bradley
wrote:
>       Hi guys,
>       I realize that this might be considered to be off topic, but the 
> machine I want to use is running Cent OS.
>       Ok, this is what I'm thinking about trying, and mainly just to
see
> if I can do it. I've got a total of 3 linux machines here, and I was
> thinking about setting one of them up as an email server. Now, I'm not
> talking about setting the machine up so that all I run on it is an email
> client like thunderbird, or evolution and retrieve email from my email
> account at bellsouth. What I want to try and do is set the machine up so
> that my machine is the email server, and I retrieve my email from it.
> Is what I'm thinking about even possible, or am I just simply having a
> case of too much oxygen on the brain? If what I'm thinking about is
> possible, how would I go about doing it?
This is so fun :) Everyone will suggest their favorite e-mail server,
and Jimmy will be even more lost than when he started.

For me, I suggest EXIM: http://www.exim.org/

[]s

- -- 
Rodrigo Barbosa <rodrigob at suespammers.org>
"Quid quid Latine dictum sit, altum viditur"
"Be excellent to each other ..." - Bill & Ted (Wyld Stallyns)

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> Don't know if qmailtoaster already has been mentioned. It's really
easy to
> setup and
> I'm really happy with my setup.
> 
> http://www.qmailtoaster.com/
>From postfix-users@
Georgi Guninski have found a remotely-exploitable security hole in
qmail.
<http://www.guninski.com/where_do_you_want_billg_to_go_today_4.html>

D. Bernstein denied the claim, classified it as "portability problem"
and refused to pay the prize.
<http://cr.yp.to/qmail/guarantee.html>

Qmail's ML responded nervously to Guninski's post. Like everytime when
anyone dare to say anything negative about qmail... It's quite
interesting:
"I said that Guninski's dick isn't half as big as he's trying
to claim."
"Go masturbate somewhere else."
"Learn to read, moron."

Link - http://tinyurl.com/caooe

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