VT wrote:
I've been reading all of the different threads having to do with mail
and I'm a little confused on all of the components. I'd like to also be
able to pull email from different external mail servers to a local
central server then with IMAP read the email from either Win98 or Linux
clients.
...
VT-
To get the mail down from multiple POP3 servers into your mail
machine, you could just use fetchmail (that's what I use). You create a
simple text config file that describes each remote account (machine,
username, password, etc.), and when you run "fetchmail", it will
POP-down all of your remote mail. Your IMAP server will then be able to
serve-up all of those messages to your mail reader (I use the Mozilla
(an October build) mail client).
You mentioned sorting the mail into different folders before reading
it. There are at least three stages at which this can be done. The
"cleanest" way is probably to have your mail server do this in between
the fetchmail and the local delivery. This can be done with "procmail"
I think; I have not gotten around to setting this up at home. The
middle-way is to use a filter program that interacts with your IMAP
(probably in a cron script) to fetch, evaluate, and move messages that
match the filter rules. There is at least one package designed to do
this on freshmeat. The last way is the one that I still use. All of my
sorting rules are built into my mail client. When I launch Mozilla's
mail reader, it fetches headers and sorts the messages into different
boxes. The biggest problem with this scheme is that if you connect with
mulitple mail clients, you must setup the filter rules in all of them.
Lastly, there is no reason to use different SMTP servers. When you
connect into any SMTP server in the world, as long as that SMTP server
allows you to send mail (ie it allows the relaying of the "from" address
that you are using), that SMTP server will deliver your email to the
appropriate destination. In fact, the most common setup is for you to
use the SMTP server of your ISP. Look at /etc/sendmail.cf for a line
that is simple "DS". This line indicates your "smart relay" host.
Change this line to point to your ISP's SMTP server (ie
"DSsmtp.mindspring.com"). Setup your mail client to use YOUR local SMTP
server for outgoing mail. So Netscape sends an email to your box, your
box sends it to your ISP's SMTP server (if your 'net connection is down,
sendmail will queue the message and periodically attempt to send it to
your ISP; if you setup your mail client to go straight to your ISP, you
will have to try re-sending when your link comes up). Your ISP's SMTP
server will then deliver the email where is goes. BTW, are you sure
that you authenticate with your SMTP server? I have never used an SMTP
server that required this. Usually, if you are coming from an
acceptable IP and your return address is acceptable for relaying, the
SMTP will accept your email.
--ronan
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 18:35:20 EDT