See below.
At 09:57 AM 6/29/00 +0100, Hart, Neil wrote:
...
>Your assumptions were correct. I have set-up a dial-up account with an ISP,
>who will also host the domain name for them. They (the ISP) will store all
>incoming mail in a single account, until downloaded from there, via POP3.
>The 'mail server', i.e. the Linux box I'm playing with, does not have it's
>own domain, it is dynamically assigned an IP address at logon. This is the
>standard arrangement for dial-up ISPs here in the UK. It is then my job to
>'sort' the mail and send it on.
>
>So, my understanding is becoming clearer. I now believe that I need
>'fetchmail' to handle the downloading of the mail from the ISP.
Right. (Or an equivalent, but fetchmail is the only POP3 downloaded for
Linux I am familiar with.)
>I think
>that I then need another program (MTA?) to feed the email to the correct
>machine.
Not quite. The usual approach here is to run a POP3 server (fetchmail is a
POP3 client) on the mail server. Then the individual workstations run POP3
clients to get the mail at their convenience.
There are other possibilities. You can use a standard MTA (sendmail, qmail,
exim ... as you prefer) and have it forward mail to MTAs running on the
workstations. Unless the workstations also run Linux; I don't know the
details of how to do this, since I don't know what MTAs exist for Windows or
how to configure them.
>I have assigned the server (eth0 actually) an IP address of
>10.0.0.1. The other machines have the addresses 10.0.0.X. I have been lead
>to believe that QMAIL would be a better program for a beginner, rather than
>SENDMAIL etc.
People argue about this endlessly. sendmail certainly has its problems, with
complex configuration and seemingly endless security holes both high on the
list.
>I don't intend to connect the Windows PCs 'though' the Linux box, so hadn't
>considered a firewall necessary. Or do others think that I do?
Remember that so far, you have not described any procedure for *sending*
e-mail, only for receiving it. You have two basic options here:
-- let the Windows PCs send their mail directly to the
ISP's mail relay (which requires that they be
able to connect to it, which in turn requires
a Masq'ing firewall)
-- have the PCs use the onsite Linux server as a mail
relay. This requires an SMTP daemon (an MTA)
running on the Linux host, set up to forward
mail received from the workstations to the
ISP's mail relay. But it doesn't require a
Masq'ing firewall, since the workstations do
not need to reach the Internet themselves.
Whether you need a firewall/router for reasons other than e-mail depends on
what else the workstations need to do. So far, we've only talked about
e-mail. If, to choose the most likely example, the users expect to reach
Internet Web sites from their workstations, you will need a Masq'ing router
to accomplish this.
>The third element, a POP server, was a surprise. I thought that the MTA
>(i.e. qmail) would do that for me.
Using a POP3 server is, as I said, an option, though the most usual one.
Whether you can use an SMTP server (an MTA) to deliver mail depends on how
Outlook Express, a piece of software I am unfamiliar with, can receive mail.
>OK, to summarise my understanding, this
>is what I think I need...
>
>FETCHMAIL -> QMAIL -> POP3D -> OUTLOOK EXPRESS (Window mail client)
>
>...am I on the right lines, or am I still doing an impression of "Mr.
>Thicky"?
For *receiving* e-mail, youare on target. This procedure doesn't provide for
*sending* e-mail, though.
[old stuff deleted]
--
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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