[NTLUG:Discuss] mailserver

[A.L.]

> Since it has come up again, I will try this question again. In a
> Window$ environment I can get one package (SLMail) for a reasonable
> price and have complete email service (list, groups, alias, forwards,
> etc.) in under 30 minutes. I know the server has to be rebooted now
> and then but the software works. I don't have to get a degree to
> install it. And the interface is simple enough I can have a non-PC
> literate person adding and deleting users in under 30 minutes.

	I realize this has apparently not been your experience, but you
can take a "factory stock" RedHat linux, install it in "Server"
configuration (one of the several "one shot options" durring install), and
you've got a working mail server (assuming of course that you add the
appropo DNS entry's; but that's required of any mail server).  After that,
everything from the simple "useradd" "userdel" commands, to one of the KDE
or GNOME user managers can add and remove users, which should allow any
non-PC literate person to add and delete users.

> I know "Real Geeks" want it to be hard enough that only the truly
> devout can master "The System". 

	Na, us "Real Geeks" actually like things to be easy.  We just have
a different idea of "easy" than the rest of ya'll. :)  

	I might have spent a whole day reading documentation, and another
whole day working with the software until I had a reasonable understanding
of it, before I brought my first mailserver online (all this happened
because I was too clueless to realize at the time that Linux came
pre-configured as a mailserver).  5 years later, that mailserver is still
online, still handling mail for about 1,000 users, still has it's accounts
administrated by folks who don't know much more than "adduser" "deluser",
and other than applying security patches, it has been untouched for the
whole of it's life.  I expect it will keep running until the hardware it
runs on dies.

	See, to me, 2 days work for a mailserver that'll work for 5 years
(and longer) without a hitch is easy money. :)  A mail server that
requires rebooting for no apparent reason, does unexpected things, misses
messages, anything that requires me to manually intevene in it's daily
operations; that's a lot of hard work (IMHO).

> But really folks I still am not sure what all the pieces are. Much
> less how to configure them.
>
> So, for the umpteenth time on the umpteenth list. What are the pieces
> necessary to run an email service? I know I need a client (got plenty
> of those). And I have derived from this and other threads that I need
> an MTA and POP server. Is that all? How do they interact? Do they
> interact?

	Yup, that's basically it. :)  The MTA handles transport of mail;
both sending and recieving.  The POP server allows users to log in and
retreive their mail.  They interact in the sense that they both read/write
the same files (users mailboxes).  Other than that, they don't (or
shouldn't) interact at all.  That's why you can use whatever MTA suits
you, with whatever POP server suits you on a mix-and-match basis (or IMAP,
or Webmail, or whatever).

	When a user has the mail server (MTA) configured as it's "SMTP
host" or "Mail Server" or whatever else it might be called in their mail
client, when they compose a message, and click "Send", it will be sent to
the MTA, which will look at the message, read the address for which it is
intended, do a DNS lookup of the intended recipents domain, and upon
finding the DNS entry that tells it which MTA in the recipent's domain it
should send the message on to; it will then pass the message to the MTA of
the recipients domain.

	The MTA of the reciever of the above mentioned E-Mail will store
the message in the recipent's mailbox until such a time as they check
their mail with their mail client.  They will have configured their mail
client to make requests of the POP server, which their mail client will
happily do.  The POP server will then look in their mailbox file, see a
new message, and then transfer that message to the mail client, which will
then display it for the reciepent of the aforementioned message.  A more
graphical representation would be:

Message->Local MTA->Remote MTA->Remote POP server->Remote POP Client.

or

Message->Remote MTA->Local MTA->Local POP Server->Local POP Client.


	That clear up things any?

> I have been running Linux as my desktop OS for over two years and I
> can do most any thing I want except the one. Help, please?

	Any questions you want to ask, feel free to e-mail me offlist, and
I'll see what I can do.  Cheers!

	--A.L.Lambert