Mail Server

[Kevin Kinsey]

Warren wrote:

>How do i go about setting up a mail server on my gateway machine to collect 
>and store all email locally from the outside world etc ?
>  
>


That depends highly on how your clarify your question.  You
should certainly be reading a lot.

See the Handbook, chapter 22, for a thorough discussion
of many aspects of electronic mail.

One specific example.  I use fetchmail, from the Ports
Collection, to grab email for the whole family onto
my FreeBSD gateway/firewall at home.  It polls their
ISP mail accounts every 10 minutes.

This computer also runs a POP server, only accessible
from the LAN, and the family member's computers grab
their mail from it with whatever client they prefer.

It gives the appearance of a high-speed connection
for POP transactions, when it's really on a low b/w line.

There is a lot to learn, though, to attempt to run
most MTA's.  Unless you've got good reasons (like
you are doing this for rdksupportinc.com, your job,
etc.), I wouldn't advise running an SMTP server.

If you are the "sys admin" or "postmaster" for a domain,
give the Handbook a thorough read, as well as Googling
for documentation, checking your vendors' site (Sendmail
is the default FreeBSD MTA, see www.sendmail.org)

PostFix and Exim are two other frequently mentioned
MTAs.  FreeBSD's mail servers now run PostFix.  Their
site is www.postfix.org.

My $.02,

Kevin Kinsey