Setting up a mail server

First you'll need to set up sendmail to receive and deliver email. It's pretty easy to do with linuxconf for ordinary, uncomplicated environments. To be able to use POP to access email you'll need the imap support (it includes POP and is on the OS installation CD) installed (kpackage, gnorpm, or just rpm) and enabled (linuxconf).

When setting up sendmail you want to first test for local delivery of email (check with "mail" or a GUI mail client configured for a local mailbox) and then with access via POP or IMAP. When that's working, you can try sending outbound email to where ever you read it now. Even without an MX record you ought to be able to send mail from outside directly to the Full Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of your server to prove that it will accept mail from the Internet.

Once sendmail has been configured, you'll also need an MX record for your domain that specifies the system you are running sendmail on as the target.

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The Mail howtos (http://howto.tucows.com/LDP/HOWTO/Mail-Administrator-HOWTO.html and http://howto.tucows.com/LDP/HOWTO/Mail-User-HOWTO.html) provide a good overview of the email system.

Adjusted points from 100 to 175

OK, I have done some researching and have started to configure. This is the hardest thing so far I have setup in Linux. Setting up WEB, DNS, Firewall/Masq was pretty easy. I really want to get a mail server setup. I am increasing the points and will continue to do so as I progress thru this. Here is my progress (or lack of) so far:
I first tried configuring sendmail with Linuxconf like  you said. When I hit the accept button I got the error: Can't compute the domain name of the server, won't except email correctly. Please enter a FQDN in the 'basic host' info.  Because I have a cable modem connection with @home I have to use 'cn973032-a' as my host name. I can tell you what options I put in there if you want. I don't see why it would complain about that. In my DNS I have the hosthame set to ns1.dewliw.com and also have a names mail. and www. resolving to the same IP. How can I get sendmail  to recognise  my actual domain?  I then stumbled on this :
http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/mail.html 
which showed how to configure manually using the m4 macro proccesor to edit sendmail.cf.  I made a few changes to the default file. One thing I noticed, the file never included options to specify the domain name or server. After I configured that I restarted sendmail, I did not get an error but it took 10 minutes to restart. That can't be good. Also when I looked at linuxconf again, it still had theh same configs, and I quit without saving , it gave me the error again, like the manual config had no effect.
Now, how do I actually check toi see if it works? Right now I only use my ISP mail adr.
As for POP3, I installed it (ipop3d) and tested to see if it was running by 'telnet mail.dewliq.com 110' and got '+OK POP3 cn973032-a server ready'
so that is good I guess.  I did not see any options for pop3 in linuxconf.  How do I actually set up and test mail boxes?

>Once sendmail has been configured, you'll also >need an MX record for your domain that specifies >the system you are running sendmail on as the >target.
I think this is done.

Basically I have gotten nowhere.
Help

Actually you've gotten quite a ways along. Sendmail does require an FQDN for the machine and that can easily be obtained (if DNS is properly set up) by executing "nslookup 111.222.333.444" (with 111.222.333.444 being the actual IP address of your machine). My guess is that it is going to return something along the lines of cn973032-a...home.com.

Now, you've registered your own domain name and presumably you want to use mail.my-personal-domain.com, or similar. But a necessary pre-requisite is that the IP address of your machine must be known to whoever is providing the DNS entries for your domain. You can check that the DNS is correctly set up by doing "nslookup mail.my-personal-domain.com". If that returns the correct IP address, all is well. If not, you need to contact whoever is providing the DNS service and have the data set up correctly.

In either of the above cases you need to use linuxconf to set the hostname of your system to be the correct FQDN. You do that by going to "Config->Networking->Client tasks->Basic host information". The opening "Host name" page of that has a field for "Host name", which should read "localhost.localdomain". The real FQDN for the machine is set on the "Adapter N" (most likely "Adapter 1" in your case) page in the "Primary name + domain" field. You'd also put the short name "mail" in my example into the "Aliases" field. After a reboot I believ yooou'll find that linuxconf will allow you to configure sendmail with out errors.

I can check the DNS from here if I know what IP address has been assigned to your system and what your domain name is.

Adjusted points from 175 to 250

Increasing points again.

I am running my own DNS for my domain.  My DNS server (on the same box) works very well.
'nslookup 24.40.52.233'  outputs:
server: ns1.dewliq.com
address: 24.40.52.233

name: proxy1.oaks1.pa.home.com
address: 24.40.32.33

'nslookup mail.dewliq.com'  returns
24.40.52.233

which is correct.  Feel free to nslookup using the ip and names above.

I also changed the hostname to ns1.dewliq.com with alias mail. I rebooted and sendmail started right away. I went in to LinuxConf and just said OK to the sendmail stuff and got no errors.
Now if I go to the file ' /etc/sysconfig/network'
It has the lines:
hostname=ns1.dewliq.com
domainname=newcas1.de.home.com

Should I also change the domain name as well? or does in not matter.
Now I think we are getting somewhere. Now How do I test it? and How do I setup the mail accounts and POP3.

Thanks for the help

OK
I don't think my isp(@home) will let me have control over the IP and change the host name and domain name of it.  Matter of fact I have heard that they don't want customers running any servers of any kind. I am really just doing this for education purposes, I will not be putting up any major web site or mail server. I am not too concerned if some mail does not get through, I won't even be using it much.

The magpage name server reflects the IP of a website I had 2 years ago and that IP is long gone and is just there because internic requires 2 name servers. You can ignore the magpage IP.  Before I setup my DNS server, my primary was run by a friend of mine called fennco.com. After I setup my DNS I made mine the primary and I will be making his the secondary. But he is overseas for another week. When he returns I will have him change the IP and I will submit the change to internic.

I was unaware that it was illegal to use multiple A names. In that case I will switch then to CNAMES.

>as you'll configure sendmail to masquerade the >entire domain and all mail will appear to be from >dewliq.com rather than from mail.dewliq.com.

How do I configure this??
 

Thanks for the help I am increasing the points.
 

Adjusted points from 250 to 300

I think you are correct about @home and their attitude towards subscribers running servers. I felt that you should know of the potential problem, but if the email problem is acceptable then you don't need the IP delegated.

I agree with your comments about the secondary nameserver and having it simply listed at this point shouldn't cause much (if any) of a problem. It would be a problem if you left it like that and it wasn't actually acting as a secondary.

Saying that it's is illegal is perhaps a bit too strong of a statement (or DNS servers would reject multiple A records with the same IP). All of the DNS "sanity & syntax checkers that I know of do object strenuously to the practice. That and the fact that the RFC's say that you should do that are enough for me. Perhaps it's better to say that the practice is highly discouraged. There should be a unique corresponce between hostnames & IP's defined via A & PTR records. The need to have a system known by multiple names (aliases) is what CNAME records are for.

Setting up masquerading is easy. The "Basic Sendmail configuration" page in linuxconf has a field at the top labeled "Present your system as:", which is where you put your domain name (dewliq.com). Let it build a new sendmail.cf file and you should be set.

Adjusted points from 300 to 350

Thought we were done, but test failed.  I revised my DNS and restarted everthing. I tried to send messages using mail,pine, and netscapte to jkipp@dewliq.com (my account).  Mail got kicked back to my root. Here are the errors:
553 mail.dewliq.com. config error: mail loops back to me (mx problem?)
554 jkipp@dewliq.com...local config error

Also when I setup the mail settings in netscape, when I logged on, it asked for password for
jkipp@mail.dewliq.com ??

I found this but I was not sure if I should use this. I thought the first 3 options for linuxconf sendmail took care of the domain stuff:
http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/faqs/RH-sendmail-FAQ/x64.html

I thought I was there..getting frustrated.
Raising points..help

Thanks

It works now. I think the problem was LinuxConf. I usually try to avoid it. I mad a file copied the file sendmail.mc and added the masquerade and other files based on info I found at the sendmail site and other sites.  I then used M4 to write the file to sendmail.cf and restarted sendmail and now it all  works.
I have unistalled LinuxConf. It does more harm than good. I learn so much more by setting stuff up manually.

Thanks for the help

The "mail loops back to me" is the classic problem of sendmail not knowing who it's to receive mail for. That problem is in the sendmail FAQ at http://www.sendmail.org and the solution is to add a Cw definition for the local domain.

If you like direct editing of files, (and I agree that it's in general that it's a better way) you'd love FreeBSD. There are no, nada, not a single one, GUI admi tools. Everything is controlled by direct file edits. And the way they've done it is pretty straight forward. Almost all system configuration is done by simple edits to /etc/rc.conf. The system, for the most part, doesn't use loadable modules, so that headache is avoided (but you do on occasion need to build custom kernels).

I've just converted my firewall box to FreeBSD this weekend. Subjectively, it feels a fair bit faster than Linux (I know it boots a whole lot faster).

Thanks.  I have heard good things about FreeBSD. I am building another box as soon as I get all the parts in. I may try FreeBSD or maybe one of the other Linux Distros.  

I simply added my domain name to the sendmail.cw file and made sure the conf file had the use cwfiile line.  Plugged in the masquerade line in to make it look like user@domain instead of user@mail.domain.

IT works very well. So far not problems sending mail.

Thanks again

Cool...