E-mail Server

[Bryan Hepworth]

Gregory P. Ennis wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-12-14 at 19:04 +0200, Leon Vergottini wrote:
>   
>> Hi
>>
>> I have been tasked to commissioned an e-mail server  in the first 
>> quarter of next year.  I got this task because I am the only one at work 
>> that plays and have a small bit of understanding of how Linux work.  So, 
>> I am on a research spree.  I have already had a look at the following sites:
>>
>> The Linux document project
>> How to forge
>> Flurdy.com
>>
>> I do not ask for step by step instructions, although it will be nice, 
>> however I ask that you guys will point me to resources on the internet 
>> that may help me in this regard.
>>
>> Thank you very much
>>
>> Regards
>> Leon
>>     
>
> Leon,
>
> Setting up a mail server is a great way to understand many aspects of
> the internet.  I was elected in our firm to do the same thing.  It took
> me two years and lots of study, but it was more than worthwhile.
>
> Lots of others have given you advice and I concur with their advice to
> use Centos 5.2 ... very stable
>
> I have used sendmail as the MTA  It is easy to configure it to transfer
> mail to a 'smart host' from a desktop.  It gets harder the more pieces
> of it you choose to use.  Make sure you get the 'bat book' Sendmail!!!
>
> In my opinion sendmail works much better when you use bind to have a
> local dns server.  You can use sendmail without bind, but you have to
> deal with sendmail having difficulty being able to identify your
> internal machines from remote machine.  One of the other posters has
> advised you to be careful of allowing unwanted relay privileges granted
> to outside machines.  Make sure you study this subject well.
>
> dovecot has been recommend and I have used it frequently with ease.  I
> have not had the opportunity to install cyrus.  Make sure you understand
> the difference between POP3 and IMAP.
>
> procmail needs to be understood
>
> spamassassin is great, and you will need to make sure you know how to
> use a spam filter.
>
> clamav is better, and I have used it as a sendmail milter and within
> procmail.  The milter works better.
>
> My advice is for you to start with a small steps, and do not give up.
> You will feel like giving up but don't.  Make sure you get the 'bat
> book'.
>
> Good Luck!!!
>
> Greg
>
>   
Leon

I'd echo what Greg said.

I've used sendmail and postfix - sendmail was my first foray into email 
and served me very well. The bat book as pointed out is a must, it helps 
you understand how things  fit together and was my reference when I 
started ~ 2000/2001. That mailserver was retired last year and postfix 
took it's place. Looking back on the past year there haven't really been 
any showstoppers. Mail goes into maildirs now which does help. There's 
an oreilly postfix book that I bought to give me a leg up on the 
changes. Dovecot works well for us from the client picking up email 
aspect. cacert.org also does free certificates which you might want to 
look into.

Whatever you choose it's well worth the effort for reliable mail 
services - I've never looked back since changing the Windows box all 
those years ago which was anything but reliable!

I did document out all the changes I made along the way. There was a 
couple of people on the RedHat lists that were good on email questions. 
I guess just ask specifics once you get going.

Bryan