On Sun, 30 May 2010 13:33:56 +0200
Markus Ewald <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 5/28/2010 1:23 AM, Mick wrote:
> > Is there anywhere that CLEARLY documents these sorts of things for
> > people who don't spend their working lives setting up mail servers.
> >
> > I spent a day googling before I started and didn't find anything not
> > full of archane jargon.
> >
> >    
> I think it's just the Unix way of doing things - first, know what
> you're doing, second, do it ;-)
> 
True, it is the "unix way" and based on the absurd assumption the
anyone doing anything is already an expert in all areas of the system.

> When I installed Courier on my server, I already knew the basics from 
> previous experience with qmail, but it still took quite some digging
> in the docs to understand how Courier handles aliases, mail filters
> and it also was the first time I heard of port 587.
> 
> What you're supposed to do is:
> - Set up a /public/ smtp server on port 25. This smtp server only 
> accepts incoming emails (emails intended for a user on your server)
> and doesn't do authentication. It also never relays emails anywhere.

Is this 'never relays emails anywhere' a default setting or do I need
to explicitly set it that way?

> - Set up a /private/ smtp server on port 587 (see RFC-2476). Courier 
> calls this server smtp-msa (msa = mail submission agent, i.e. 
> thunderbird, sylpheed, evolution). All users on this smtp server must
> be authenticated and are then allowed to submit emails to be relayed
> to users on other servers (i.e. gmail, hotmail)

This I will have to investigate, the last thing I want to do is
unknowingly run yet another zombie spam server.
> - Set up a POP3 and/or IMAP server for local users to read emails.
> 
> It looks like you tried to use Courier's port 25 as your mail
> submission port. "Authentication required" is reported because
> Courier does not relay mail from unauthenticated users (otherwise it
> would be an open relay). By setting AUTH_REQUIRED for port 25, you
> required everyone (including gmail and hotmail) to authenticate
> themselves, thereby rendering your email server unable to accept
> incoming messages.
> 
I worked this out but made a dumb assumption and only commented out
AUTH_REQUIRED = 1 instead of explicitly turning it off. after I sorted
this out incoming mail worked.

I now have a functioning setup but I don't know if it is configured to
behave as it should. 

> I don't know if it helps, but I documented the steps I've taken to
> set up Courier on my server here:
> http://www.nuclex.org/blog/personal/83-installing-courier-on-gentoo
> 
this looks good, as soon as I have time I'll give it a thorough look.
many thanks, mik

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