Linux mail servers and (UGH!) Windows
The Eighth Doctor
One of my clients still believes Linux, especially Slackware can't play well within a
Windows managed domain.
He wants me to setup a reasonably simple setup that would enable mail to be sent
from the Linux system to a Windows system.
I've started reading the man pages for fetchmail, and imap. My next step would be
the document pages and the howtos. Any further suggestions?
----
Gregg drwho8 att dot net
Keith Matthews
Windows mail clients or Windows mail servers ?
Linux servers or Linux clients.
If you've never configured an email system at the server level before then
beware that you have an awful lot to do to understand the vital parts.
The Eighth Doctor
inv...@frequentous.co.uk says...
Urm... Okay. Both at the client level. It would be a regular mail server sitting on
Linux.
Early on, I did look at the problems of setting up a mail server for Windows. I'd
rather not discuss it further.
The Linux one actually seemed easier.
---
Gregg drwho8 atsign att dot net
Simon
wrote:
> One of my clients still believes Linux, especially Slackware can't
> play well within a Windows managed domain.
>
> He wants me to setup a reasonably simple setup that would enable mail
> to be sent from the Linux system to a Windows system.
You can try pointing him to the various RFCs for email (821, 822, 1939,
2821, 2822, etc), to explain that it's all protocol-based rather than
OS-specific.
You will need to take care with this, though. If you appear to be
having trouble getting this working, your client will still think the
same, so make sure you know what you're doing before you do in there.
> I've started reading the man pages for fetchmail, and imap. My next
> step would be the document pages and the howtos. Any further
> suggestions?
You'll need a reasonable understanding of how Internet mail works,
before you attempt this (you seem to be confusing the terms client and
server, at least). I'd start with this:
<URL:http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Mail-Administrator-HOWTO.html>.
You then need to decide which machine is going to play the client role
and which is going to play the server role & decide on a transport
protocol. Will the Slackware box pass the email on by SMTP? Will the
Windows box collect the email by POP3/IMAP? What software will you be
using (fetchmail won't do what you describe)? Those are rhetorical
questions that you need to think about, by the way.
--
Simon <si...@no-dns-yet.org.uk> **** GPG: F4A23C69
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
- Douglas Adams
Joost Kremers
> before you attempt this (you seem to be confusing the terms client and
> server, at least).
or maybe not, and his client is really worried that if you're on a linux
desktop machine you cannot send an email to someone who will read it on a
windows desktop machine. people have asked me this, and appeared quite
surprised when i said that wasn't a problem at all.
--
Joost Kremers joostk...@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)
Simon
> Simon wrote:
>> before you attempt this (you seem to be confusing the terms client and
>> server, at least).
>
> or maybe not,
Sorry, I probably wasn't clear. I was referring to his follow-up to
Keith, in which he implied that he wanted both of them to be clients
(whereas, to transfer email, one needs to act as a server, at least
temporarily).
> and his client is really worried that if you're on a linux
> desktop machine you cannot send an email to someone who will read it on a
> windows desktop machine. people have asked me this, and appeared quite
> surprised when i said that wasn't a problem at all.
I've had the same reaction. When talking to some people, they didn't
expect me to be able to read their email or visit a web site from
anything other than Windows, although they had an idea that it might be
possible on a Mac. In my old job, I spoke to a customer that didn't
think she'd be able to send email because our email servers didn't run
Windows.
The Eighth Doctor
use...@no-dns-yet.org.uk says...
regarding the job request. I do know the difference between the two. Pine, mutt,
mail, they are all clients. Imap is of course specie of a server.
My client is, ah, someone who isn't computer savy.
----
Joost Kremers
> Imap is of course specie of a server.
erm, no, it's not. IMAP ("Internet Message Access Protocol") is a protocol
for communications between a mail server and a mail client, with the goal
of allowing the client access to the messages stored on the server.
i don't doubt that you know that, but in dealing with computers, it helps
to be extremely precise about things. helps prevents misunderstandings and
problems.
The Eighth Doctor
r...@justlinux.nope.ca says...
>
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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>
>Joost Kremers <joostk...@yahoo.com> trolled:
>> The Eighth Doctor wrote:
>>> Imap is of course specie of a server.
>>
>> erm, no, it's not. IMAP ("Internet Message Access Protocol") is a protocol
>> for communications between a mail server and a mail client, with the goal
>> of allowing the client access to the messages stored on the server.
>>
>> i don't doubt that you know that, but in dealing with computers, it helps
>> to be extremely precise about things. helps prevents misunderstandings and
>> problems.
>
>"anal", just gets in the way of things most often.
>
>cordially, as always,
>
>rm
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Hello from Gregg C Levine
No he corrected one of my many mistakes when typing quickly. Which I
expected. I certainly didn't expect you to insert your annoying remarks, although
I should have expected it. We didn't ask you for advice, as usual. I now realize,
what I realized when I sent the message, that imap is that name for a messaging
protocol. Imapd is one of the servers who sends them.
marti
wasn't 10 minutes into it when I decided to uninstall sendmail that I had
included in the install. I downloaded postfix from linuxpackages and had it
setup in about an hour and I knew nothing about mailservers before I
started.
I would recommend postfix if you are interested in ease of setup. The docs
and the website have all you need to get you setup in no time.
--
That's all folks
Davisons Trull
Indeed. I too would suggest Postfix over the default sendmail install. Sure,
your Slackware box can send mail out-of-the box using sendmail, but
you'll likely want to expand this.
If you're going to setup a full-blown mail server, I would suggest the
following:
Postfix - mta
SpamAssassin - anti-spam
Amavsid - goes with SA
Razor - goes with SA
DCC - goes with SA
ClamAV - to protect the insecure Windows boxes from viruses
CyrusIMAP - IMAP package
CyrusSASL - security
Squirrel mail - Webmail
Takes about 45+ mins to set up (depends how fast your system complies!) and
you've got a nice, stable, secure mail server that filters spam,
Microsoft viruses and has webmail to boot.
Or, if you want to impress, then do this at home on your dev box and then
image the system using mkCDrec. When you get to your client just pop the CD
in and you'll have a fully configured mailserver set up in a matter of
moments.