"Jeremias Galletti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I'm trying to migrate from Windows 98 to Linux. Now I'm using my
> computer mainly for email, so a good email implementation is vital
> to my system. I've read the Mail-HOWTO and it recommends
> people to use qmail instead of sendmail. I've successfully
> downloaded and compiled qmail, but so far I haven't been able to
> configure it right.
If you have only one computer and all you want is to access a pop3
account at your ISP then you don't need any MTA (qmail or other).
Just use Netscape to get your email straight from the ISP. Same for
sending email.
On a side-note: One of the best (IMHO) Mail User Agents (MUA) is
``gnus'' which is an application running inside emacs or xemacs (a
programmer's editor). It can sort your mail into various folders and
sort and score it before you even see it. The learning curve is a bit
steep, but it is rewarding -- I love it. Like netscape, gnus can talk
directly to your ISP.
> The first problem arises when I have to tell qmail my FQDN. I
> connect to the Internet through my ISP, which assigns me a
> different dynamic IP address every time. My hostname is precious,
> so what should my FQDN be?
Your system should have networking enabled even if its just a single
PC. Choose any name you like, but it probably will save you some
grief if the domain name does not occur on the Internet.
``local.null'' is a possibility. Your host would then have a FQDN of
``precious.local.null''.
You should also choose a private IP address range: 192.168.net.host
``net'' can be any number from 0 to 255,
``host'' can be anything from 1 to 254.
> I played aroung with different FQDN values and found that
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] seems to work. But when I try to
> send an email locally, I get different error messages saying
> something about one of qmail's daemons not being able to chdir to
> the mail directory. I've created mailboxes for root and my username
> with the utility included with qmail. Do I have to change the
> directory permissions?
The maildir or mbox file should only be readable and writeable by you.
It would help if you give us the exact error message and what lead up
to it.
Have you created the necessary users and groups with the appropriate
numbers in /etc/passwd and /etc/group before compiling qmail?
> I've read all the qmail docs I could find, and so far they seem to be
> oriented to big systems.
Mostly true, but you will find info relevant for small systems.
Other than the author's web site there is <http://qmail.org/> with a
wealth of additional information. The Linux HOWTOs are very good too.
> Should I use qmail? My laptop is not connected to a network, and it
> only has one user. Has anyone successfully configured qmail for this
> particular kind of system?
The only reason (I can think of) why you might want to install qmail
would be for educational purposes. I had a system like that once.
You also need ``fetchmail'' and optionally ``procmail'' to get mail
from your ISP and ``serialmail'' (from the qmail site) to send mail to
your ISP.
--
Manfred Bartz
