Postfix Question

James Wilkinson fedora at westexe.demon.co.uk
Wed Mar 8 17:37:39 UTC 2006


Chris Norman wrote:
> Cheers, my other question (regarding the MUTT package, kind of):
> 
> I have got dovecot and postfix which are supposed to be handling messages, 
> but neither of them seem to be. I'd like to be able to hit send in MUTT, and 
> have my own SMTP server belt the e-mails off.
> 
> Can you give us a hand please?

Well, as it happens, I'm using dovecot and postfix, too.

As people have said, it's Postfix that's responsible for sending your
e-mail. Mutt should be able to use it without specific Mutt
configuration (it's "sendmail compatible" in as much as it has a
sendmail command that does what the "real" sendmail does, using the same
flags for the same things).

The main file you'll want to look at is /etc/postfix/main. (Take a hint,
and take a pristine copy of it now!) It's well documented: take a look
through and see what you want.

Depending on your ISP, the one thing you will probably have to configure
is "relayhost". Set that to whatever your ISP says is the "SMTP server".
You may also want to configure myhostname, mynetworks_style and
myorigin.

How are e-mails getting *to* the machine? Are you using mutt to connect
to Dovecot on another machine? Or are e-mails coming in through SMTP to
postfix? Or are you using fetchmail?

If e-mails are coming IN through Postfix (possibly via fetchmail), you
should also look at inet_interfaces, soft_bounce, mydestination, and
*possibly* mailbox_command (or home_mailbox).

If things aren't working, take a look at /var/log/maillog, and see what
Postfix is logging there.

One other piece of advice: edit /etc/aliases, and put in an alias that
makes sure a normal (real) user gets root's mail. In some situations
this is necessary, in others, it's simply a Good Idea.

Have fun!

James.

-- 
E-mail address: james | Things have never been the same since my arch enemy,
@westexe.demon.co.uk  | due to a slight clerical error, put a price on my
                      | shed.
                      |     -- Jim




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