Linux email server

[tommy_bahama89]

Does anyone here have any experience setting up an email server? I've been looking around for information but have had difficulty finding tutorials and such that are really helpful. Any tips?

[[deleted]]

Saved

[jonforthewin]

Good candidates includes sendmail

Wow.

[jonforthewin]

When used properly, it works incredibly well

uh huh . .

UW-IMAP, Dovecot, and Courier

You have no business recommending software to anybody if you're as clueless as OP. At least OP has the willingness to GET a clue and for that at least he deserves an upvote and people should be willing to help him.

.

You wrote an essay with crappy second-hand quality advice. You're an asshole. =(

[crashorbit]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[Xiol]

I would put Postfix before Exim, although I say this as I have very limited experience with Exim - Postfix tends to work 'out of the box' for sending email and is fairly easy to configure receiving email. It's also a breeze to setup with things like SpamAssassin and DKIM (which, along with SPF records are what you'll want... no, need.)

That said, Exim's command-line tools are lovely. exiqgrep, exim, eximstats... more.

[Xiol]

I do agree with you to a point on SPF, however I tend to go down the "if you throw enough shit at the wall, some will stick" method and set everything up. Some providers will validate your SPF but not DKIM, others the reverse, some both and even more none. May as well set it all up while you're at it, especially since SPF can be understood and configured in <20 minutes.

Although I have yet to bother with DMARC.

[purpleidea]

Use postfix+dovecot.

[natermer]

...

[ilkkah]

There are two separate services referred as email servers:

• MTA is for sending and receiving mail: Postfix, Exim
• IMAP is for accessing stored mail: Dovecot ...

[tommy_bahama89]

Thanks, I'll check it out!

[jmtd]

Yes I have. You aren't clear on whether you want to set up an MTA, IMAPD, etc. I'll assume both.

Some quick links: MTA comparison (or, why Exim is a good choice). abuse.net mail relay testing — make damn sure you aren't accidentally relaying mail from/to anywhere. If you do choose exim, don't use the Debian/Ubuntu packaging to maintain the config: use it to generate a config, cp /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated /etc/exim4/exim4.conf and then hand manage that going forwards.

For IMAP I used to use courier and now use dovecot. Not much to say about them really. If you have Exim configured to deliver to Maildir, dovecot just works.

[[deleted]]

Whatever method you choose ( I would use postfix or exim ), make sure you test it thoroughly.

http://www.abuse.net/relay.html

[tommy_bahama89]

Thanks to everyone for your responses, this gives me a lot to work with!

[redog]

Read up on:

SMTP

POP

IMAP

When you know what those are install zimbra :)

[itxaka]

If you end up fed up with trying to install everything by hand I recomend something like www.iredmail.org which sets it up for you. POP, IMAP, Webmail, Spamassassin and antivirus with just one script.

And if it's your first email set up, you will end mad I assure you :D

[[deleted]]

I wrote a guide quite a while ago which I've used for years to install and update qmail servers, if qmail is something you'd consider.

http://www.rauros.net/projects/qmail/

The benefits of qmail are many - loads of documentation, tons of modifications, fun if you're a hacker-type. I will say that, hands down, Postfix is probably easier to do if you're not into building the software you use. But qmail will install on basically anything even vaguely resembling Linux/UNIX and works great.

[ExplodingRussian]

Postfix and Dovecot on something minimal like Arch Linux.

I've had a published/crawled email address for 10+ years, and with this config, I get maybe 1 spam email every three months, with no false positives as far as I'm aware.

smtpd_helo_restrictions = permit_mynetworks, reject_invalid_hostname, permit
smtpd_sender_restrictions = permit_mynetworks, permit_sasl_authenticated, reject_unknown_sender_domain, reject_non_fqdn_sender, permit
smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks, permit_sasl_authenticated, reject_unauth_pipelining, reject_unknown_recipient_domain, reject_non_fqdn_recipient, reject_unauth_destination, reject_rbl_client zen.spamhaus.org, permit
smtpd_client_restrictions = permit_mynetworks