Help configuring email server...

[Brian Kelsay]

Congratulations on not giving up and starting from scratch.  Why don't you point us to the documentation that you found helpful?  I would like to try exim or postfix for one of my next home server projects and could use the help.  Exim is installed by default on Debian server class installs, instead of Sendmail, IIRC.  Or was that postfix?

Smarthost usage is what allows your mail to be relayed thru the ISP SMTP server.  Your mail gets a note in the header that it was relayed via a smarthost and so it is allowed at some destinations that would have previously bounced the mail, since you don't own the IP address.  Reverse DNS of mdg.homelinux.net, shows RoadRunner owning the IP address instead matching the owner of mdg.homelinux.net.   If you had a business class account you would get static IPs and RR would handle the reverse DNS to look right to the world.  Some mail servers will still block your mail however, because your IP is in the range of a broadband provider and they choose to blanket block all those IPs.   Some choose also to block ranges that are assign to countries such as China and Korea that are notorious for spammers and open relays.

On the MX host settings to use at dyndns.org, read their FAQ on MX and then read it a few more times.  I did and it eventually made sense.  If you have a firewall that is accepting all outside connections from one IP address and forwarding to the appropriate  server, then you may be able to leave the MX blank.  DNS will then use the same IP address as the rest of the domain.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MX_record



Brian Kelsay

>>> <linux at bizniche.com> 10/07/04 09:46AM >>>

>It's nearly there!  I decided to give exim one more shot, and then move
>to sendmail if I still can't get it going.  Following the advise in
>several emails, I found a few errors and corrected them.  Earlier, for
>a test, I setup an account in fetchmail to see where _that_ mail would
>end up, and after correcting my errors, it those messages (from the
>pop3 account fetchmail was pulling down) ended up in my inbox. (Viewed
>in mutt.)  That was encouraging.  New mails to that account also end up
>in my inbox.  So...SOMETHING is working right. 

>I still can't get local mail (mail -s "testing" mdg) or mail sent
straight to mdg at mdg.homelinux.org to get to my inbox though. 

The other issues, that I figured I would deal with last, is that reading
through the exim logs, I find that some test mails I sent from the
mdg at mdg.homelinux.org account are rejected by the recipient server, and
it tells me to stop using a dhcp host, and to use my isp's smarthost. 

Also, this domain is a dyndns.org domain, and it lets me setup an MX
host for this domain.  I assume it would be mdg.homelinux.org. 

So...great help so far.  I'm not quitting this time...I'm getting this
thing going if it kills me.

Here is a question that I've wondered about.   I see great benefit by
using fetchmail and some spam filters together.  I have a few pop3
accounts that I check via thunderbird.  It seems like I could have my
little linux email server checking these for me, filtering the spam,
and making the emails availble in an IMAP format (which I prefer.) 
Knowing that...Can I also _send_ from each of these accounts, through
my linux server?  That is...if fetchmail is pulling mail from
mdg at domain1.com and mgraham at otherdomain.com, and I'm reading them
trough an IMAP setup in thunderbird...can I respond to these mails and
have them come from mdg at domain1.com and msgraham at otherdomain.com 
respectively?  It seems like they'd always come from
mdg at mdg.homelinux.org.  Right?

Matt