e-mail, the next level
Hello Debian friends,
I'd like to invite you to talk about 'how to do your e-mail' in the
following scenario. This scenario is farly common (i think) but there is no
howto recepie to do it.
scenario:
You have:
- Debian server (mine is called gardian) able to connect to the internet:
- Mail user agent on your client, that understands POP3 and SMTP (do you
know one that doesn't?)
- There is no permanent link to the Internet (Using a modem, thus in most
cases Dynamic IP's)
- All users got their own POP3 account (from your ISP or yahoo, probably
more options)
You want:
- You want all users to be able to do e-mail as if they are on-line all the
time
What needs to be done: (also the part requiring some more work/thinking)
The following things can happen:
1. someone on the local network sends e-mail to a user on the local net
2. someone on the local network sends e-mail to an internet account
3. someone checks their e-mail
The only way to get this working at all is to handle all mail on your own
server. thisone is always there. I'm thinking of running POP3 on the local
server, and telling the clients to poll that account. This way your client
can 'get' mail for you regardless of the state of your internet connection.
We need a way of getting the mail out of your pop3 box, located somewhere on
the internet. I've been experimenting on getting Fetchmail to collect my
mail on Yahoo.com. Works ok for me. Fetchmail polls my mailbox and adds all
new messages to my mailbox located on the server located on my own network.
This needs to be done automagicaly when one goes on-line and while on-line
on a set interval. Last but not least, it needs to get mail for all users on
the local network. (I'll spare you the 'man fetchmail', this can all be done
by fetchmail, and the ip_up/down scripts)
Next part is a bit more difficult, sending mail.
The general idea is that all mail that has to be sent goes to your own SMTP
server (Exim in Debian). and youre done on the client part.
Exim on the other hand gets to do all the hard work like figuring out what
to do with this e-mail. Is it for some local user? send it now. If not, try
sending it yourself. If you are on-line, contact the host the mail has to go
to and deliver it using smtp. If not, hold the mail and send it later. I
hear some of you saying: use the smpt of your provider or yahoo's. My
comment: loads of mail services only offer pop3 and loads of isp's don't
allow a return address that differs from your account (to deal with spam
mostly). Also, have you noticed the "Do you yahoo? get free email at
www.yahoo.com" line on the bottom of my mail? I don't want it there. So to
prevent all this shit i think it's simpler if you do the sending part
yourself.
One thing that needs to be done is to rewrite the return address
(nico@gardian isn't valid on the internet, only on my local network) to the
address of your pop3 box on the net (nico@gardian must be changed to
nicodehaer@yahoo.com) so that if someone replies to one of my mails he/she
will be sending it to yahoo. I had this working but i had a major downside.
If i wrote a mail to admin@gardian and the admin (also me) replied, he was
sending his reply to nicodehaer@yahoo.com too, while it *should* go straight
back to nico@gardian.
At current i'm focussing on fetchmail, exim and a pop3 server. Perhaps there
is something to say for dumping the pop3 server in favour of imap.
I'd like to see your ideas / flames / insights
Yours,
Nico de Haer
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
Reply to: