Handling Mail on Debian

[Kenny Hitt]

Hi.

On Mon, Oct 04, 2004 at 06:22:20AM -0500, John J. Boyer wrote:
> hello,
> 
> I just installed Debian Sarge. During boot-up it tries to start exim but
> finds an error in the exim configuration file. Then it says exit. Does
> this mean that exim is not running? The error was about a malformed macro
> in line 4, which pointws to the exim configuration file directory in /etc.
> 
Yes, exim didn't start on the system.  You need to fix the error in the
config file before it will run.

> How is procmail used? Is it needed at all, like fetchmail on Redhat? I'll 
> be using Mutt, since that came with Debian. How do I get it set up to send 
> and receive mail? It doesn't seem to produce a .Muttrc file in the home 
> directory.
> 
Procmail is used to filter messages.  At least that's how I use it.
Mutt uses the system wide config file in /etc/Muttrc until you create
your own .muttrc file in your home directory.  Mutt sends mail using the
system mta.  By default it is exim on Debian.  You usually use fetchmail
to get your mail from your pop3 server.  When mutt starts, it looks for
your inbox in /var/mail/userid.  /var/mail/userid is a mbox file.

Hope this helps.
          Kenny