pcguru
asked on
Email-server software, where?
I'm looking for an email-server application for AIX UNIX. It doesn't have to be anything too advanced like Netscape because it will only be used by about 50 users. But still it should be easy, stabile and cheap.
Any one know where I can find such software??
Any one know where I can find such software??
What's wrong with sendmail ? It is not easy but there is plenty of information, examples, books. It is stable -- more than decade in service. It is cheap -- it comes with every UNIX system.
ASKER
I know **** about UNIX, that's why I'm asking this. I thought SENDMAIL only was a command to immediate send a mail?
Can you guide me so that I'll get it up'n running?
Can you guide me so that I'll get it up'n running?
ASKER
I know **** about UNIX, that's why I'm asking this. I thought SENDMAIL only was a command to immediate send a mail?
Can you guide me so that I'll get it up'n running?
Can you guide me so that I'll get it up'n running?
If this is all you know of UNIX then it is not going to be easy.
For a step by step guideance of how to configure sendmail, I would recommend you "Sendmail" from O'Reilly, ISBN 1565922220. Excellent book, and don't be scared of the volume, half of the book is full with valuable references. It will start with very simple configuration and then gradually build more and more functionality. Yes, with sendmail you build mail infrastructure, e.g. functionality.
However, if you are in the beginning of your way to become a unixguru, give Linux a try. It's free, it's easy, there are milions of colleagues out there to help you.
For a step by step guideance of how to configure sendmail, I would recommend you "Sendmail" from O'Reilly, ISBN 1565922220. Excellent book, and don't be scared of the volume, half of the book is full with valuable references. It will start with very simple configuration and then gradually build more and more functionality. Yes, with sendmail you build mail infrastructure, e.g. functionality.
However, if you are in the beginning of your way to become a unixguru, give Linux a try. It's free, it's easy, there are milions of colleagues out there to help you.
ASKER
Linux is no solution for me I'm afraid. We're already running UNIX.
I am not saying that you have to delete your current UNIX installations and put in Linux in order to start learning. What I had in mind was to start experimenting/playing and ultimately learning by finding a PC, then install Linux and start rock & roll. When you fill comfortable with shells, cryptic commands and command line interface, go back to that AIX and do what you have to do.
Otherwise, I don't quite understand your last comment.
Otherwise, I don't quite understand your last comment.
ASKER
I just dont have the time to learn both Linux and UNIX at the moment.
ASKER
I just dont have the time to learn both Linux and UNIX at the moment.
Then you are not looking for advice, you are looking for someone to get the job done.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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ASKER
This seems easy enough for me =) Great. I'll try this. When all of this is done, the mail server is up'n running but without any addresses configured, right? If so, how do I configure/add users?
Don't let the 50 points fool you, I've got plenty of them =)
/Anders
Don't let the 50 points fool you, I've got plenty of them =)
/Anders
Hi PcGuru,
That's right, you'll need to add users - or, at least, aliases.
To add users, you need to edit the file /etc/passwd. Look at the format in this file, each line will have several fields separated by colons (:). The first is the login name, the second is a password, then a unique user id, a group they belong to, their real name, then their home directory, and finally their default shell. If you don't give people interactive login, you can simply set the home directory and shell to something that doesn't exist.
The group numbers are in /etc/group, and you can make new groups if you like. This is just a way of collecting people together by a sort of functional grouping, that is entirely conceptual and defined by you, the administrator.
Note that if the password field does not contain a wierd set of characters, but just an 'x' or a '*' or something like that, then your passwords are actually held somewhere else - possibly /etc/shadow, but it may vary depending on the version of Unix/Aix you have. However - you should be able to find out by typing 'man passwd' and scrolling right to the bottom - there, it will list the files it uses ... one of these is /etc/passwd, and another will be the shadow password file.
Edit the shadow password file, and add a line for your new user. Just copy any old line, change the username, and then execute the passwd command on them from the command line - so if the user was 'fred', then you could type 'passwd fred', and this will set their password.
One note - if you do decide to let people have interactive access, you will need to set their home directory to something valid in /etc/passwd. You can make directories using the mkdir command. You might put people all under /home for example, so fred would then go into /home/fred ... nearly finished now :) - you need to make fred the owner of his own directory, so you type
chown fred /home/fred
. also, you need to assign his group to him. Now, you gave fred a group id in /etc/passwd, and this should correspond to some sort of entry in /etc/group (even one you made up). Say this group was 'users', then you would type
chgrp users /home/fred
Finally, if you type
ls -l /home/fred
you will see fred owns that directory, and it belongs to group users. Also, if you now type
finger fred
you will see a user called fred exists, and he has not logged on!
If you want to make aliases, you can edit the file /etc/aliases. This contains a mailbox on the left, and where to forward it on to, on the right. So, for example, to make up an email address 'webmaster' on your computer, and make any mail to it go to root, you would type
webmaster: root
in this file. Note that the left hand side need not be a valid user on your system. Also, note the right hand side can be any email address ... so, if you had lots of systems, you could set the root address on all of them to be forwarded to the one address, somewhere else.
When you edit the /etc/aliases file, be sure to run the newaliases command. If you do not seem to have this command, then run
/usr/lib/sendmail -bi
which is directly equivalent.
Regards,
David Williams
That's right, you'll need to add users - or, at least, aliases.
To add users, you need to edit the file /etc/passwd. Look at the format in this file, each line will have several fields separated by colons (:). The first is the login name, the second is a password, then a unique user id, a group they belong to, their real name, then their home directory, and finally their default shell. If you don't give people interactive login, you can simply set the home directory and shell to something that doesn't exist.
The group numbers are in /etc/group, and you can make new groups if you like. This is just a way of collecting people together by a sort of functional grouping, that is entirely conceptual and defined by you, the administrator.
Note that if the password field does not contain a wierd set of characters, but just an 'x' or a '*' or something like that, then your passwords are actually held somewhere else - possibly /etc/shadow, but it may vary depending on the version of Unix/Aix you have. However - you should be able to find out by typing 'man passwd' and scrolling right to the bottom - there, it will list the files it uses ... one of these is /etc/passwd, and another will be the shadow password file.
Edit the shadow password file, and add a line for your new user. Just copy any old line, change the username, and then execute the passwd command on them from the command line - so if the user was 'fred', then you could type 'passwd fred', and this will set their password.
One note - if you do decide to let people have interactive access, you will need to set their home directory to something valid in /etc/passwd. You can make directories using the mkdir command. You might put people all under /home for example, so fred would then go into /home/fred ... nearly finished now :) - you need to make fred the owner of his own directory, so you type
chown fred /home/fred
. also, you need to assign his group to him. Now, you gave fred a group id in /etc/passwd, and this should correspond to some sort of entry in /etc/group (even one you made up). Say this group was 'users', then you would type
chgrp users /home/fred
Finally, if you type
ls -l /home/fred
you will see fred owns that directory, and it belongs to group users. Also, if you now type
finger fred
you will see a user called fred exists, and he has not logged on!
If you want to make aliases, you can edit the file /etc/aliases. This contains a mailbox on the left, and where to forward it on to, on the right. So, for example, to make up an email address 'webmaster' on your computer, and make any mail to it go to root, you would type
webmaster: root
in this file. Note that the left hand side need not be a valid user on your system. Also, note the right hand side can be any email address ... so, if you had lots of systems, you could set the root address on all of them to be forwarded to the one address, somewhere else.
When you edit the /etc/aliases file, be sure to run the newaliases command. If you do not seem to have this command, then run
/usr/lib/sendmail -bi
which is directly equivalent.
Regards,
David Williams
ASKER
Alrighty then. Will start investigating this next week. Hope it goes along smoothly.
I don't know yet, but you seem like a very good help =)
You will get points thereafter.
I don't know yet, but you seem like a very good help =)
You will get points thereafter.
Thanks, pcGuru :)
Let me know if you get stuck anywhere ...
Also, this is a long shot - but see if your system has a command 'adduser' ... some Unix's come with such a beasty that will automate a lot of the user creation for you.
Let me know if you get stuck anywhere ...
Also, this is a long shot - but see if your system has a command 'adduser' ... some Unix's come with such a beasty that will automate a lot of the user creation for you.
ASKER
Oboy... now I finally have time to test this.
So I did...
I couldnt update SENDMAIL. The server's FTP command wont connect to anything and I can't figure out how to read the floppydisk. =(
So I skipped that and hoped that the existing version will work.
I couldnt find the directory mentioned in step 8.
Also the m4-directory in step 10, I couldnt find that either so I havent updated the sendmail.cf file.
But, I did manage to add a test alias and send mail to it although I cant find the mail, but I didn't get any error when sending it. Logging on to retrieve mail is not working either, but I guess all of this has to do with the sendmail.cf file?
What do I do now?
So I did...
I couldnt update SENDMAIL. The server's FTP command wont connect to anything and I can't figure out how to read the floppydisk. =(
So I skipped that and hoped that the existing version will work.
I couldnt find the directory mentioned in step 8.
Also the m4-directory in step 10, I couldnt find that either so I havent updated the sendmail.cf file.
But, I did manage to add a test alias and send mail to it although I cant find the mail, but I didn't get any error when sending it. Logging on to retrieve mail is not working either, but I guess all of this has to do with the sendmail.cf file?
What do I do now?
Ahh, only just saw your response. I was wondering what was happening here.
You really will need to download the sendmail archive from www.sendmail.org or ftp.sendmail.org -- it contains all the source code, and the cf/m4 directories for making configuration files.
You most likely have some sort of sendmail on your system, and maybe a cf file ... but you won't have the code base to build a new one at all.
Try using a Web browser ... or, look through the man pages for disk commands.
You really will need to download the sendmail archive from www.sendmail.org or ftp.sendmail.org -- it contains all the source code, and the cf/m4 directories for making configuration files.
You most likely have some sort of sendmail on your system, and maybe a cf file ... but you won't have the code base to build a new one at all.
Try using a Web browser ... or, look through the man pages for disk commands.
I can't believe that after all the help I gave, and your comment about giving more than just 50 points, you gave this just a C grade and 50 points !!
I can't believe that after all the help I gave, and your comment about giving more than just 50 points, you gave this just a C grade and 50 points !!
ASKER
So sorry, I really didnt know nothing about unix, but wanted to evaluate if it would do the job for us and then get someone to install it safely.
But since I got stuck after 1 minute, couldnt start any browser, didnt know how to access the floppy, the man pages wasnt installed.... and so on... so there were no evaluation... sorry about the low grade, hardly remember it now. I have alot of points so thats no excuse...
But anyway, sorry. :)
Anders
But since I got stuck after 1 minute, couldnt start any browser, didnt know how to access the floppy, the man pages wasnt installed.... and so on... so there were no evaluation... sorry about the low grade, hardly remember it now. I have alot of points so thats no excuse...
But anyway, sorry. :)
Anders