How to optimally set up components for SOHO mail system.

[Simon Slater]

On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 16:43 -0700, Craig White wrote:
> I use a setup that I implement on all my clients...
> 
> postfix
> MailScanner (wrapper for clamav & spamassassin)
> SQLGrey (greylisting)
> cyrus-imapd
> 
> mail is received by postfix, put into incoming queue, noticed by
> MailScanner, checked, passed back to postfix for delivery, and finally
> put into cyrus-imapd store.
> 
The mail client (Evo, Kmail etc) then points to the local IMAP store?

> cyrus-imapd includes server based sieve mail filtering, many automatic
> features and allows users or administrators to individually share mail
> folders. I set up all clients to use imap which allows them to use any
> program on any computer on the network and still access their e-mail
> and
> I only have to backup the server.
> 
This is the type of functionality I'm after.

> I use RHEL or CentOS for this mail server and not Fedora because of
> the
> need to frequently update. I use Fedora for user desktops.
> 
We go at a slow pace with nothing on computer being "mission critical"
so I'm happy to stay with Fedora for now while I'm still learning, but
when I need to free up more time for other things CentOS is the favoured
option and RHEL when I'm not hands-on much.

> Generally, when you want to run your own mail server, you also need to
> run your own DNS server because mail delivery depends upon DNS
> resolution and when you've got a mail server on your internal LAN, it
> has to resolve the domain name for e-mail delivery. Generally, I go
> for
> overkill on mail setup because e-mail is the office/workgroup
> essential.

Sorting out the DNS now.

> I also install the latest Horde/IMP/Kronolith/Nag/Turba/etc. (and
> LDAP)
> to give a fully integrated workgroup collaboration suite of not only
> shared e-mail but also shared contacts, shared calendars, etc.
> 
Until now, only heard of the Evo suite and Koffice.  Will check those
out.

> If you plan on continuing to use the same mail accounts at the same
> ISP,
> then you would probably need to set up fetchmail (or getmail) to
> retrieve the e-mail from the ISP and feed it into your mail server.
> 
So the flow is:
ISP -> fetchmail -> postfix/procmail/sendmail -> MailScanner -> SQLGrey
-> Cyrus/Dovecot -> Evo/KOffice/etc

> Craig
> 

-- 
Regards,
Simon Slater
Registered Linux User #463789. Be counted at: http://counter.li.org/