[commercial] sendmail setup request

[Polytropon]

On Mon, 09 Jul 2018 12:40:05 +0700, Olivier wrote:
> Mayuresh Kathe <mayuresh at kathe.in> writes:
> 
> > my goals are very basic and hence quite simple.
> > i should be able to log into the freebsd instance as my username
> > which would be the same as my email address (mayuresh at kathe.in)
> > and use mailx to go through my emails.
> > i don't need imap nor webmail.
> > i know it must be a simple sendmail setup, but frankly, i'm not
> > capable enough to understand the in-and-out of sendmail to be
> > able to configure it to my requirement.
> 
> If your needs are really limited to what you describe, you may consider
> using fetchmail to get the mail from your current mail server (at your
> registrar). Fetchmail should dump your mail on your FreeBSD system and
> you will be able to use mailx. That way, you avoid all the problems of
> setting up a machine intended to receive mail.

The requirement included "storing message non-locally", but
fetchmail can "copy" messages, i. e., leave them on the server,
and upon invocation, only load the unread messages). Check
"man fetchmail" for the keep / nokeep keyword.

The advantage of fetchmail is that it puts the received
messages into the system's mail spool where the locally (or
remotely) logged-in users can get it from. It's stored in
the mbox format which mail and mailx can handle natively.
And fetchmail can be called via cron, or interactively
when needed.



> The configuration to send mail from your FreeBSD/mailx machine should be
> quite simple (just a few lines to tell sendmail to push your outgoing
> mail to the mail server at your registrar).

Depending on the registrar or the ISP, two possibilities
could be considered:

a) use of a mail relay - in this case, a simple addition
   called SmartHost to the system's sendmail configuration
   usually is sufficient, but it depends on the ISP to
   provide such a facility; or

b) use the local sendmail to "forward" the messages received
   locally to the regular SMTP "input" of the registrar.

Both constructs have advantages and disadvantages.

Again, mail and mailx can be used for this approach, as they
send to (or via) local sendmail per default.

However, there's a 3rd option which _might_ work:

c) use the local sendmail to directly send the messages to
   the recipients.

This option often fails, especially from dynamic IPs, or from
static IPs within ISP ranges that are considered "dirty" because
there is some "Windows" box in the ISP's address range that
permanently spams the world.



Summary:

This whole construct would "mimic" IMAP. In an inconvenient
manner. But it would work. :-)





-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...