[TriLUG] E-mail questions

[Jason Tower]

here's what i do, you might find this useful.  i have several machines that
i want to check my email from, including home, work, customer sites, etc.  i
also have several accounts that i want to consolodate into one account so i
don't have to check them individually.  i've played around with several
combinations of sendmail/fetchmail/pop/imap servers and settings, and so far
this works best:

1. go to dyndns.org and register a sub-domain name.  it is totally free and
works great.  for example, i use tower.homelinux.org.  you can choose from
about two dozen domain names, such as dyndns.org, homelinux.org, etc.  once
you register just point the domain name you chose to your home IP address.
don't worry if you have a dynamic address at home, we'll cover that later.

2. designate one box at home to be your mail server.  it should run sendmail
or the MTA of your choice, i've used both sendmail and postfix and both work
fine.  the default rh72 sendmail install is probably the easiest.  also
install and enable the imap daemon which runs via xinetd in rh72.

3. install and enable apache on the mail server.  edit /etc/httpd/httpd.conf
to include your new domain name, and run 'chkconfig httpd on' to have it run
when you reboot.

4. create a user on the mail server for you to use, assuming you haven't
done so already.

5. create a ~/.fetchmailrc file with the remote email servers you want to
download mail from (you can use imap with fetchmail but you'll find pop3 to
be easier since you want the mail to reside locally, more on this in a
minute).  if you don't know how to configure fetchmail, you can use
fetchmailconf, which i don't particularly care for, or try using webmin
(available from webmin.com) which works great.

6. as the user (not root) run 'fetchmail -d 3600' which will poll your
remote servers once an hour and download your mail and dump them all into
one account.

7. download and install squirrelmail (from squirrelmail.org).  i'd suggest
not using the rpm but instead get the tarball.  it's a snap to install, just
unpack it into /var/www/html and rename the directory 'webmail'.  run the
config utility to set  your mail server (localhost) and domain name and
that's it.

8. configure your firewall to allow port 80 traffic into your mail server
(and/or set up port forwarding if you're using NAT).

9. now, from anywhere on the internet you can open a browser and go to
'yourdomain.dyndns.org/webmail' and BLAMMO!  you should get a squirrelmail
logon screen.  enter your username and password, and you will have web-based
access to all of your email.  basically, squirrelmail acts as a web front
end to imap, which runs on your server and connects you to your mail store,
which gets filled up by fetchmail.  piece o' cake.  i've been running this
setup for nearly a year now and it's fantastic.  you don't need to configure
anything at the client end to have access to all of your email, and it's all
centrally managed.

10. if your IP address is dynamic, you'll need to run a program that
periodically checks your IP and alerts dyndns.org if it changes.  there are
several clients that do this, dyndns.org has a list of them.  personally, i
run a linux firewall called smoothwall that has a built in dyndns.org
client, it is worth checking out.  or take a look at ipcop.org, which is a
smoothwall fork.  both are GPL'd.

as i said, i've been running this setup for nearly a year with nary a
problem.  it's easier to set up than it sounds, and i'd be happy to assist
anyone who would like more specific info.  i've also set up my mailserver to
receive mail for my sub-domain name, so i don't even need a third party
email account.  shoot me an email at jason at tower.homelinux.org if you wish.
 and good luck!

> OK, I have a bundle of questions that I have been trying to answer on
> my own,  but haven't been having much luck with.
>
> Let me give you my setup...
>
> 4 computers...
>
> 1 - Firewall...
> 2 - Desktop computers, one using Linux, the other Windows ME.  The
> Linux box  is my 'main' computer.
> 1 - laptop.  This is my computer away from home, and for when I want to
> sit  outside and browse the 'net.
>
> desktops are running Redhat 7.2, while the laptop is 7.2.92 (whatever)
>
> Currently I am using Kmail to read my e-mail from both linux computers.
>  My  laptop is set to download without deleting from the server...
> while the  desktop is set to delete from the server.
>
> My question...
>
> I'm trying to move to a fetchmail/sendmail-or-whatever/procmail setup,
> where  the desktop uses fetchmail to get the e-mail and does verious
> things to it...
> However, this seems to break the utility of the laptop.  (As I want to
> run
> fecthmail all the time...)  Should I use a POP/IMAP server to allow the
>  laptop access?  Can I punch that through the firewall without too much
>  security issues?  Should I use the firewall as my mail server?  If I
> wanted  to setup my own mail domain, should I use sendmail or smail or
> something else?
>
> I've been looking at the documentation for sendmail, and I think I've
> decided  that I don't want to touch that if possible.  :)
>
> Anyway, if you could reply with good resources, or even descriptions of
> what  you are doing to handle e-mail, it would be appreciated.
>
> I haven't really touched on the whole e-mail processing part of linux,
> just  been playing with the other network aspects of it.
>
> Thanks for the help.
>
> CJK
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