Re: Mail retrieval / delivery
C Masters wrote:
> I have several users on this box (2 room mates), each of us uses a
> different method to read mail (KMail, Mozilla, Netscape), therefore any
> system would have to be transparent to the other users.
>
> My initial thoughts are that I should be able to configure fetchmail to
> retrieve ~my~ mail (at first) and then use any mailer to read and send
> mail. I'd also like to be able to use the ~internal~ mailing system to
> receive logs and to send messages within my "home network".
>
> Any useful instructions / pointers would be appreciated. I ~must~ be
> able to set up my system as a mini-network. Future plans include the
> purchase of othere boxes; it would be nice to be able to deal with
> email on a truly multi-user system, while more than one person is on
> the system.
Sounds like you want what I have. I have two Debian machines and a
Windows box, and my wife and I both use them. Debian box #1 is a
workstation and also runs our mail server and clients. Debian #2 is a
low-powered machine for running proxy servers outside the firewall.
Here's what I have set up:
Incoming mail:
On Debian #1, fetchmail, running from per-user crontabs, retrieves our
mail. (I want to change this to be a single system-wide fetchmail
running as a daemon, but I haven't got round to it yet.) It gives the
mail to exim, also running on Debian #1, which sends it to procmail for
filing. Our firewall blocks the SMTP port, so I don't have to worry
about anyone compromising my systems via some exim exploit, nor do I
have to worry about being an open relay for spammers.
Outgoing mail:
Mail clients invoke exim to transmit. Exim is configured to consider
itself an "internet site" (as I think the exim configuration tool put
it), so all outgoing mail goes directly to the destination site, rather
than being forwarded from our ISP's mail server. (In theory, some sites
may reject mail coming from a home site on a DSL line, but that has
never happened to us.) It could be reconfigured to be a "smart host"
that forwards mail to our ISP's servers; it wouldn't affect the rest of
our setup. I just don't have any reason to do it, and I'd rather not
have to worry about the dependability or latency of someone else's SMTP
server.
Internal mail:
Debian #2 has ssmtp installed, which is just a simple mail forwarder
that I configured to send all mail to exim on Debian #1. The only mail
it sends, generally, is daemon errors mailed to root, which are re-
addressed to my account at Debian #1.
Mail clients:
All mail reading is done on Debian #1, either at the console, or from
the Windows machine in a networked X session (the Windows box has the
Cygwin Unix tools, including XFree86, installed). I also use ssh to
connect to Debian #1 from work to read mail. And I have an IMAP server
installed, though I don't really need it anymore; it was just a good way
to get all our old mail out of Outlook Express's proprietary-format
archive files and onto the Linux machine.
So that's a quick description of the setup. If that sounds like what
you want, feel free to ask for configuration details.
Craig
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