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On Mon, 24 May 2010, Damon Young wrote:
I have been trying to understand how mail server are set up. I can not get it right or to the point do not understand it. So I am looking for help to sit down and set it up. I am still learn to use linux all.
How long have you got ;-)So is this a server to take incoming email, handle outgoing email, both, something else... ?
Then there's all the acronyms to learn...MTA - Mail Transport Agent - the "thing" that transports email from one server to another.
MDA - Mail Delivery Agent - the "thing" that takes email off an MTA and deliverers to to a local system (often running on the same server as the MTA). Probably almost always procmail in the Linux world these days.
MUA - Mail User Agent - what you type your email into - talk to a MTA to actually sent the email.
There are more... but I suspect you're interested in the MTA and probably the MDA too.
MTAs come in many flavours - sendmail, postfix, exim, qmail, MS exchange to name but a few....
And with each MTA comes reams and reams of documentation, anecdotes, guides, what to do and what not to do's and so on.
I'd start with what your distribution recomend you use and go from there.I use sendmail, but I've been using sendmail for a very long time. (Early 90's) It's not for everyone though - best to stick to the default for your distribution and start reading your distributions website on how to set it up...
Then there's the DNS - you need to know about MX records and how to change them in your DNS - you won't get email in the first place without the correct DNS being setup.
Gordon -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html