Hello,

I would like to install a mailserver on a home network.
It is connected to the internet with an OpenBSD firewall (pf),
that I would also like to use as mailserver.
I'm not using my own domain, but want to get email from the
ISP, and make it available to the users on the internal network.

Why do I want this?
Some multiboot machines are used internally, making me want
to have a mailserver that stores all email, so that anyone
can read their email (and have their mailfolders accessible)
whatever machine they're working on, in whatever OS.

Are there any people around who have a similar configuration,
and would like to share what they are using and why?
(qmail, procmail, courier, postfix, sendmail...?
pop3 or imap?)

thanks for any tips,
Peter.

Peter Vos wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I would like to install a mailserver on a home network.
> It is connected to the internet with an OpenBSD firewall (pf),
> that I would also like to use as mailserver.
> I'm not using my own domain, but want to get email from the
> ISP, and make it available to the users on the internal network.
>
> Why do I want this?
> Some multiboot machines are used internally, making me want
> to have a mailserver that stores all email, so that anyone
> can read their email (and have their mailfolders accessible)
> whatever machine they're working on, in whatever OS.
>
> Are there any people around who have a similar configuration,
> and would like to share what they are using and why?
> (qmail, procmail, courier, postfix, sendmail...?
> pop3 or imap?)
>
> thanks for any tips,
> Peter.

looks like you need to understand a lot more about email first.

Primarily you need to understand the protocols that will be used. One set
are used between you and your ISP, the other between your users and yout
mail server. They can be (but need not be) the same.

Trying to keep it simple (and flatten the learning curve a little) -

Question Number 1 - how do you get your mail from your ISP. That will
dictate a lot about the interface you present to the outside world.

Question Number 2 - are people likely to move from one machine to another.
If so use IMAP in preference to POP3.

Peter Vos <peter.vos@dns.be> wrote:

> I'm not using my own domain, but want to get email from the
> ISP, and make it available to the users on the internal network.

Sounds like you need fetchmail. It basically checks your ISP email and
then feeds it back into sendmail so that you can use procmail, pine, mail,
etc.


HTH,
Sean
--
\___/ Sean Keplinger
|o,o| skeplin at one dot net
\/ ) http://spookyworld.dnsalias.com
----mm-----------------------------------

On 2004-06-22, Sean Keplinger <skeplin@gandalf.spookyworld.dnsalias.com> wrote:
> Peter Vos <peter.vos@dns.be> wrote:
>
>> I'm not using my own domain, but want to get email from the
>> ISP, and make it available to the users on the internal network.
>
> Sounds like you need fetchmail. It basically checks your ISP email and
> then feeds it back into sendmail so that you can use procmail, pine, mail,
> etc.

And why would that be? Who knows, maybe the ISP supports sending mail
by SMTP to OPs server. That is preferrable (IMO) over polling. In the
face of not knowing that, why bother with higly speculative answers?

Please, just ask OP for more detail or outline _all_ options known to
you. If this is the only option you knew about, you now know that you
didn't know enough to answer the question.


--
j p d (at) d s b (dot) t u d e l f t (dot) n l .

I had the same type of issue and after banging my head against the
wall for weeks I purchased this:

http://www.nogalis.com

I bought the smaller one and it took me about 5 minute to set it up. I
couldn't be happier with it.

MJ


Peter Vos <peter.vos@dns.be> wrote in message news:<pan.2004.06.22.12.01.49.494488@dns.be>...
> Hello,
>
> I would like to install a mailserver on a home network.
> It is connected to the internet with an OpenBSD firewall (pf),
> that I would also like to use as mailserver.
> I'm not using my own domain, but want to get email from the
> ISP, and make it available to the users on the internal network.
>
> Why do I want this?
> Some multiboot machines are used internally, making me want
> to have a mailserver that stores all email, so that anyone
> can read their email (and have their mailfolders accessible)
> whatever machine they're working on, in whatever OS.
>
> Are there any people around who have a similar configuration,
> and would like to share what they are using and why?
> (qmail, procmail, courier, postfix, sendmail...?
> pop3 or imap?)
>
> thanks for any tips,
> Peter.

On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 12:18:32 -0700, Mike Jacobsen wrote:

> I had the same type of issue and after banging my head against the
> wall for weeks I purchased this:
>
> http://www.nogalis.com
>
> I bought the smaller one and it took me about 5 minute to set it up. I
> couldn't be happier with it.
>

It looks like a nice product, but as a home user, I'm not
going to pay hundreds of dollars for something that has to
be possible to build yourself. I have no deadline, and want
to learn something doing this.

Thanks,
Peter.



> MJ
>
>
> Peter Vos <peter.vos@dns.be> wrote in message news:<pan.2004.06.22.12.01.49.494488@dns.be>...
>> Hello,
>>
>> I would like to install a mailserver on a home network.
>> It is connected to the internet with an OpenBSD firewall (pf),
>> that I would also like to use as mailserver.
>> I'm not using my own domain, but want to get email from the
>> ISP, and make it available to the users on the internal network.
>>
>> Why do I want this?
>> Some multiboot machines are used internally, making me want
>> to have a mailserver that stores all email, so that anyone
>> can read their email (and have their mailfolders accessible)
>> whatever machine they're working on, in whatever OS.
>>
>> Are there any people around who have a similar configuration,
>> and would like to share what they are using and why?
>> (qmail, procmail, courier, postfix, sendmail...?
>> pop3 or imap?)
>>
>> thanks for any tips,
>> Peter.

On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 15:35:35 +0000, Sean Keplinger wrote:

> Peter Vos <peter.vos@dns.be> wrote:
>
>> I'm not using my own domain, but want to get email from the
>> ISP, and make it available to the users on the internal network.
>
> Sounds like you need fetchmail. It basically checks your ISP email and
> then feeds it back into sendmail so that you can use procmail, pine, mail,
> etc.
>

Thanks for the tip, it seems to be what I was looking for. If I
understand correctly, all I have to do is configure a mailserver
(pop or imap or whatever) on my machine, which accepts smtp from
fetchmail?

> HTH,
> Sean

You did, thanks,
Peter.

On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 16:41:51 +0000, jpd wrote:

> On 2004-06-22, Sean Keplinger <skeplin@gandalf.spookyworld.dnsalias.com> wrote:
>> Peter Vos <peter.vos@dns.be> wrote:
>>
>>> I'm not using my own domain, but want to get email from the
>>> ISP, and make it available to the users on the internal network.
>>
>> Sounds like you need fetchmail. It basically checks your ISP email and
>> then feeds it back into sendmail so that you can use procmail, pine, mail,
>> etc.
>
> And why would that be? Who knows, maybe the ISP supports sending mail
> by SMTP to OPs server. That is preferrable (IMO) over polling. In the
> face of not knowing that, why bother with higly speculative answers?
>
> Please, just ask OP for more detail or outline _all_ options known to
> you. If this is the only option you knew about, you now know that you
> didn't know enough to answer the question.


I didn't really expect a full blown article explaining all possible
actions - as I'm willing to experiment a bit in order to learn things,
I'm happy with any pointer to something useful (as I don't have
enough free time to try out everything).
SMTP may be better, but polling pop accounts is all I get from this ISP.

Peter.

On 2004-06-23, Peter Vos <peter.vos@dns.be> wrote:
> I'm happy with any pointer to something useful (as I don't have
> enough free time to try out everything).

But your question didn't include enough information to make much
judgement about what might be useful. So we're stuck with guessing what
your environment may or may not be -- compare the commercial suggestion.

When it isn't necessairy one should not have to guess, and so one should
not guess without at least announcing one does.

That was the point, really. If this or the other is the right solution
or maybe there exists something not mentioned that is even better, is
completely besides my point, actually.


--
j p d (at) d s b (dot) t u d e l f t (dot) n l .

Peter Vos <peter.vos@dns.be> wrote:

> Thanks for the tip, it seems to be what I was looking for. If I
> understand correctly, all I have to do is configure a mailserver
> (pop or imap or whatever) on my machine, which accepts smtp from
> fetchmail?

Sendmail should already be running by default on your OBSD box, but you'd
have to install pine or elm or mutt separately if you wanted to use a more
robust MUA. I personally don't like the bare-bones "mail" program interface.

In each user's /home directory, you set up a .fetchmailrc config file which
specifies how often to poll, where to go to get mail, which protocol to use
and your username and password (security issues abound). Then, you start
fetchmail for that user.

Once you install fetchmail, just check the man page for more configuration
options -- 'man fetchmail'.

For users to be able to check their mail from another machine (Linux,Windows,
Mac, etc) you need to install a POP3 or IMAP daemon; I use ipopd.

If you'd like, email me personally and I can fill in some more details. (See
address below.)


Sean
--
\___/ Sean Keplinger
|o,o| skeplin at one dot net
\/ ) http://spookyworld.dnsalias.com
----mm-----------------------------------