Mail server advice needed please.

[lintoon]

Hi, I am looking at setting up an email server. Im running Mandrake 10 as the server, behind a broadband router/firewall.

Can someone please advise me which software to install in order for my linux box to receive email for my lan users (MS-Outlook)

I have 5 users, all with pop3 accounts at the isp (@ourcompany.co.uk). They all have unique usernames and passwords with the isp. In other words it is not 1 single pop "drop box" for the company.

Originally I googled and found postfix and courier-imap as my answer. But, the more I search I find different answers. So here I am, all googled out and looking for advice.

Does postfix only send mail, and if so do I need fetchmail installed to receive mail?, or do I only need postfix or only need fetchmail? (along with courier-imap or equivalent)

Is fetchmail only used for dial-up connections?, if so what should I use for remote pop3 retrieval on broadband instead, postfix?

The reason for wanting the server to do the email collection instead of the client workstations is so I can add centralised antivirus and antispam (eg ClamAV and SpamAssassin).

Thanks for any input.

[Loki3]

I don't have any experience setting up an email server so I can't really help. Hayl, who is moderator here, has a guide setup on his website. Maybe that will help.

http://www3.telus.net/public/dale_d/

Good luck.

[drummerboy195]

If I understand you correctly, you dont really need to set up a mail server. If they POP3 boxes already exist at the ISP, then all you would have to do is setup the mail clients to check on that server for new mail. If you were to set up a mail server, then the only that that would happen is your mail server would check the ISP for mail, and then your mail clients would check your sever for mail. That seems like a little bit of added complexity that isnt really necessary, provided that I understand you correctly.

[happybunny]

i agree with drummerboy...

with KMail (in kde) i tell it what my outgoing SMTP server is (smtp.serviceprovide.com) and the incoming POP3 server (pop3.serviceprovider.com) and I can send and recieve all day long with no internal mail server.

I know Outlook has the same settings somewhere, with username and password if your ISP requires it for each user.

[lintoon]

Thanks Loki3, that link looks a good starting point. It shows all the software needed for what I want, but doesnt mention anything about multiple pop3 collections to the 1 server.

The reason I'm trying this is to cut down on the microsoft virus/worm problems. I've put in a Linux server so it can collect the mail for the pop3 clients so it can be scanned for viruses and spam before it reaches the client pc. And hopefully in the future kick Outlook into touch to eradicate the outlook address book problem.

Sounds great, but I have to get started yet.

Cheers.

[lintoon]

Thats exactly what Im trying to do drummerboy195.

Receiving:
Linux server collects mail from ISP POP3 accounts. Clients collect mail (Virus and spam free) from the Linux server.

Sending:
Clients send mail to the Linux server. Linux server forwards mail to ISP SMTP server.

The client end should'nt be a problem. It's probably (I hope) just a matter of setting the incoming and outgoing server settings to the ip of the linux box. And if it is a problem squirrelmail could be my solution.

I'm just confused at the software needed on the linux box because I read in a few places that fetchmail is intended for dial up connections.

[drummerboy195]

Ohhh, I was not aware that this was a dialup connection. This makes your problem quite a bit different, in addition to being outside my range of knowelge. :D

[Loki3]

Hmm.

Like I've said I've never done this before so I don't know how useful I can be besides just providing links. I know you're not using Gentoo but there's a whole raft of mail server related guides on the gentoo forums. I don't know which one would work the best for you but here (http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=56633&highlight=email+server).

This (http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=171499&highlight=email+server) and this one (http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=83500&highlight=email+server) might work too. Browse through 'em and see if you find anything you like.

Furthermore, I use Gentoo so I can help you decypher the Gentoo-ish parts of those guides if you'd like.

and also an intresting note regarding Outlook Addressbook...

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=126278&highlight=email+server

may or may not be helpful to you.

Keep us tuned.

[KenP]

Postfix is what I use on Mandrake 9.1

Simple to set up (3 lines in main.cf) and all is fine.

to get mail from an isp you should be able to set up a .forward on those accounts to send all mail off to the new linux mailserver ( assuming it allways has a connection to the net)

If you want to you can then set up spamassasin, virus scanning etc

try this one http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/5561/1/

Hope this Helps

[lintoon]

Thanks for the links guys, I'll have a read through them tonight.

No drummerboy195 I'm not on a dialup connection, Im on broadband. It's just that Ive read that fetchmail was intended for use on a dialup connection

[drummerboy195]

Well, if you are on a broadband connection, as I said before, there is no need for a fetchmail server, the mail client on the users computer can be set to get the mail from the mail server at the ISP. The only reason I could think of that you would want to use a setup with fetchmail or similar is if you were on a dialup connection, and insetad of each person triggering a dialout when they wanted to check their mail, the fetchmail server dials out at periodic intervals, gets the mail, and stores it for retreival by the client program. I can see no reason for wanting to setup a fetchmail server with an always on broadband connection.

[jymbo]

I have a similar setup running on a Slackware 10 box:

-Sendmail
-Clamav antivirus milter
-Spamassassin integrated with procmail
-WU-Imap for user mailboxes
-Mailfilter to do a prelimenary spam-cleaning before d/ling mail
-Fetchmail to poll ISP pop3

But since you're running Mandrake, I can't say that I can be of much help...:(

[Loki3]

Originally posted by drummerboy195
Well, if you are on a broadband connection, as I said before, there is no need for a fetchmail server, the mail client on the users computer can be set to get the mail from the mail server at the ISP. The only reason I could think of that you would want to use a setup with fetchmail or similar is if you were on a dialup connection, and insetad of each person triggering a dialout when they wanted to check their mail, the fetchmail server dials out at periodic intervals, gets the mail, and stores it for retreival by the client program. I can see no reason for wanting to setup a fetchmail server with an always on broadband connection.

While you could just setup each individual computer to check their pop3 boxes at the ISP I don't think that's the goal here.

If I understand correctly lintoon wants to put a linux-based mail server between all of his clients and their ISP mail server. (Mail Server --> Linux Box --> Clients). The reasons to do this are twofold as far as I can tell. One, this will allow the mail server to only fetchmail at certain times for the entire network. Should reduce bandwidth usage. This isn't a huge deal since the LAN's on broadband. The second reason is for virus and spam sorting. Inless you feel like forking out some money to your ISP they're probably not going to offer any kind of virus scanning or spam sorting service on their mail server, thus what's in your inbox on the mail server turns up in your inbox on your client computers... and if those clients are running windows you see some problems developing. However putting a linux-based computer between the two with virus and spam filtering should be a cost-effective solution to this problem.

Now, I'm obviously not lintoon but as far as I can tell these are his goals.

There also shouldn't be any noticable differences in following guides for other distros beside in the way you install the packages.

[drummerboy195]

Ahh, I understand now! My apologies for my thickheadedness.

And, as usual, now that I understand the problem correctly, it is outside of my range of knowelge.

[SA_99]

Why even bother with sendmail/postfix? Couldn't the clients just use the ISPs SMTP server? Unless you also want to check outgoing mail for viruses, it just seems like running your own SMTP server would be a waste.

As far as the rest goes... You could use fetchmail to retrieve the mail from the ISP's POP3 server, use SpamAssassin and ClamAV for spam categorizing and virus checking (respectively), and then either use POP or IMAP to serve the mail to your clients.

For documentation:
The fetchmail FAQ (http://catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/fetchmail-FAQ.html)
SpamAssassin docs (http://spamassassin.apache.org/doc.html)
ClamAV docs (http://www.clamav.net/doc/)
The links others provided should detail POP server setup.

:)

[Loki3]

Originally posted by drummerboy195
Ahh, I understand now! My apologies for my thickheadedness.

No worries. I still don't know if I understand the problem correctly either.

SA_99 is right too. Inless you want to scan outgoing mail for viruses you don't even need to bother with sendmail. Which will save you a lot of headache.

[lintoon]

You're exactly right loki3. Linux box collects the pop mail to rid the spam and viruses before they reach the windows pc's. It saves buying software for windows protection, plus if I can manage to get rid of Outlook in someway or another I'm halfway to less problems :)

Setting the smtp server on the clients to the isp's smtp server is a good suggestion. Pretty obvious when you think about it.
Can fetchmail collect mail for mulitple pop3 accounts all with their own username and password?
I asume I need courier-imap or something like that for my alias sorting and pop3/imap mailboxes for my users.

Thanks again everyone.

[Loki3]

I should think fetchmail supports fetching mail from multiply POP3 boxes for unique accounts but like I've said, I've never done this before, so all I can really do is point you in the right direction...

Here's fetchmail's feature list at it's website.

http://catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/fetchmail-features.html

[lintoon]

Ok, loki3 cheers. Now I have a starting point at least.
Time to get my teeth into it now.

If I can get it to work I'll post back here the solution and maybe, time permitting, put in a "how to" post.

Thanks for all the help everyone, much appreciated.

[Loki3]

Originally posted by lintoon
Ok, loki3 cheers. Now I have a starting point at least.
Time to get my teeth into it now.

If I can get it to work I'll post back here the solution and maybe, time permitting, put in a "how to" post.

Thanks for all the help everyone, much appreciated.

Actually if you could post back here once you get into setting things up that'd be great. I'm quite curious on how to do this and building a mail server is something I'd like to do in the near future. You're feedback and experience would be most helpful.

Good luck and if you have any problems, let us know!