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Re: urgent Mail Server



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On Wednesday 02 Apr 2003 12:18 am, Lindsay Yardley wrote:
> G'day all,
> This morning I recieved an invoice from the isp who handles my
> mail/website, he's increased his fees by 200%. This is only a hobby
> thing so I can't justify spending that much for redirection & masking.
> I'd like (have to) to take over the administration myself. I'd like a
> HowTo (for dummies) on the process of administering it. And, I need to
> setup a mail server here in the next few hours, which is the *easiest*
> MTA? I would have liked to use the debian default Exim but the docs for
> fools like me are rather thin, the one I use will need to have plenty of
> simple and clear documentation, remembering I know very little about
> administering an MTA.
> Thanks in anticipation,
> (a very paniced)
> Lindsay


As others have given pointers in how to set up the mta I wont elaborate 
myself.  However there are some detailed docs at www.exim.org if you need 
them on configuring exim.  

However, you seem to also need to be able to get people who want to send you 
mail to direct them at your mail server.  This requires that somewhere out 
there on the internet there is a nameserver for your domain name with MX 
records that point at your mail server.  This is easy enough if your ISP has 
allocated you a fixed ip address, but more difficult if your IP address is 
allocated via DHCP.

If you are going so far as to set up a mail server, you could also consider 
setting up a name server for your domain, then you have control of the MX 
records.  Again, this will only work if you have a fixed IP address.

You don't say much about what your ISP is doing for you that costs so much, 
and how taking over the MTA will save you money.  For instance, my ISP does 
not provide any domain name hosting services BUT I am still using my own 
domain name.  This is because I am using www.freeparking.co.uk to host my 
domain and all its costing is a few GB Pounds a year.  It allows me the 
ability to manage the domain through a web interface, where I can direct 
forward mail into a specified mail account at my ISP.  From there I collect 
mail using Fetchmail, before feeding it into a local MTA at home.  I actually 
get 5 mail accounts with my ISP and feed 4 of them with my four family 
members names and use the fifth as a catchall for all other mail sent to the 
domain.




- -- 
Alan Chandler
alan@chandlerfamily.org.uk
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