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Email server for Linux 2

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agape234

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Oct 10, 2001
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Standing up a Linux network (DHCP, DNS etc) wanting to move from Micro$soft for email and possible other services. Any suggestions on decent email packages. My users are PC/App illiterate so it will need to be transparent for them. Any thoughts. Outsourcing to hotmail or yahoo is not an option. Are YOU Sancho?....No you are not. Is Scott Baio Sancho?....NO, he is not!....Only.."I"....am Sancho!
 
You can get email server specific distros but there isn't really an 'email server' as such in the Linux/unix world.

What you will be looking to set up is an underlying delivery/reception system for the emails themselves and a method to present them to the clients.

Initially, install an MTA (mail trasport agent) which will look after sending and receiving emails. The omst common is "sendmail" but this can be complex to configure. Some other popular MTAs to consider are "postfix", "exim" and "qmail".

Now you have the MTA set up, you'll need an MDA (mail delivery agent). This receives the mails from the MTA when the MTA realises the mail is for local delivery and not to be forwarded on. The most common implementation for this by far is "procmail" and will be installed as default on virtually all systems. By default, it puts the emails into individual users' spool files.

Finally is the MUA (mail user agent). You can run mail client programs on the linux box (mutt, pine, evolution etc) but from what you say, you'll best use an IMAP4 server (IMAP4 is the 'successor to POP3 but it retains the mails on the server rather than delivering them out perminently to the remote client). A common IMAP server for Linux is the "University of Washington" IMAP server. Most mail clients (outolok, outlook express, eudora etc will read IMAP).

A final alternative is to put a webmail interface on top so your staff can read it via a browser - "squirrelmail" is a good one.

 
Does that mean I can play with the grill and milkshake machine now? :)
 
Yup. As long as they are all running embedded Linux. "Linux appliances".

B

 
What about the SUSE products - eg. Suse Open Exchange?? Simplest option if you are new to Linux...

ChrisCW
 
Actually Samsung has a mail server that is supposed to mimic Exchange in every way.
 
well this just sort of answered a question i just posted...

I am using sendmail right now, I like it and have spent some time learning how to use it.

I got it setup so it put email to whatever user's mailbox.

I now am ready to setup some kind of POP3 service so my users can login and get there email with outlook and such.

How do I do this?
 
Have a search on this forum for answers to pop3/imap4 - it's quite a common question posted and there's a lot of good replies knocking around.

Briefly, you want to either install a pop3 server or maybe better an imap4 server (keeps the email on the server and clients only download the full message when reading - so users can get to their email from any machine).

For IMAP, the faves seem to be University of Washington (UW) or Courier. Haven't used a POP server so don't couldn't recommend anything.
 
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