On Thursday 18 November 2004 23:48, Eric Scott wrote: SNIP > I take it that, for example, [EMAIL PROTECTED] sends a message with his SMTP > server to [EMAIL PROTECTED], Postfix or something recieves it, and plops > it into my "myaddy's" "~/Maildir" directory? �Forgive me for my ignorance, > but I have never set up an email server before :-P. �So yeah, have I got > the following right?: > > -I install/startup Courier and Postfix > -I create a user for each email address that my client wants (I.E. > [EMAIL PROTECTED]), with a ~/Maildir directory for each of them. > -Your average Joe sends his message through his ISP's SMTP server to > [EMAIL PROTECTED], Postfix grabs it, plops it in /home/Joanne/maildir, Joanne > connects to the POP server, and takes it from their into outlook express or > whatever. � > > Thanx for your patience... doubtless my next post will have something to do > with how to setup Postfix ;-). > � � � � � � � � � Cheers, > � � � � � � � � � � � SigmaChi Yes you are getting there. In the Windows world you are used to applications that do the "whole thing" for you. But in the Unix world functions are broken down into individual tasks with different applications performing each task. This gives the admininstrator much more control, but increases complexity. So yes the process goes like this.
User A send mail to user B via SMTP. A Mail Transfer Agent like Postfix/Sendmail/QMail receives the mail on Port 25 and decides it is for a local user. It may then pass the mail to a Mail Delivery Agent such as Procmail to decide how to deliver it to the user. Procmail may decide it is Spam and put it in a spam folder ( with the help of spam detection software like SpamAssassin), or may recognise it as a mailing list and put it into a list folder, or may just put it in a users regular Maildir folder (or Unix Spoolfile), after maybe having scanned it for viruses with the help of something like Clam. A separate POP3 or IMAP server is monitoring those folders and will pass the mail onto a client using port 110 when requested. How you set it up can be quite simple or fiendishly complex. In an earlier post I told how to set up a simple server using the Mandrake mail server Wizard, or my web site has quite a complicated setup described with lots of bells and whistles. There are any number of valid ways to set up a mail server using all sorts of software, and it can be awfully confusing. The best way to understand Postfix is to read the text in the setup file /etc/postfix/main.cf It is full of helpful info. Virtually all of the parameters can be left as default. derek -- www.jennings.homelinux.net http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org
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