Opinion on mail server setup

[Andrew Boothman]

Defryn, Guy wrote:

>Thanks,
>
>I don't have any experience with mail systems what so ever. So Postfix
>is not a pop3 server? What do I need to get a full working mail server
>up and running? I use postfix as an MTA and I have an email program on
>the client side (running on windows machines). Is there anything else
>that needs to be installed on my freebsd box? 
>
You need an MTA to deal with your incoming mail and, if you don't want 
to read it on your freebsd box, you'll need some kind of pop3 or imap 
server to access it. Some MTAs come with a POP3 server, qmail does for 
example. Having said that, I'd still recommend postfix. Once you've got 
your head around it, it's a _very_ good piece of software.

Most people won't recommend that you use the 'sendmail' server that 
comes installed with FreeBSD simply because most people find its 
configuration so difficult. If you do decide to change the system's MTA 
be sure to read 
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mail-changingmta.html 
which I stuck into the handbook for just these situations! :)

If I were you I'd start out by reading everything on postfix.org and 
then Google-ing a *lot* and start to build up a picture of what you want 
to do, and how all the different parts fit together. You'll be astounded 
when you see how many configuration options postfix has......

:)

Good luck!

Andrew.