Just a general question, about setting up a mail server.
What I want to do is have the mail come in to the server (Slack 10.1
headless). I can then filter it, to get out the spam. I have 2 PC's &
1 laptop that I can then access the mail, leaving it on the server for
say 2 weeks them deleted. There is 1 email account someone@isp.co.uk
(ie filtered by the someone).
I don't need anything too fancy & easy to setup.
I have been using Slack for a few years, so I can find my way around,
but when I tried to do this a couple of years ago I made a right mess
of it.
My question is
1. Should I stick with 10.1 or upgrade to 12
2. What software should I install.

Thanks Lez

On 2007-10-08, Lez <google@lesorton.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> Just a general question, about setting up a mail server.
> What I want to do is have the mail come in to the server (Slack 10.1
> headless). I can then filter it, to get out the spam. I have 2 PC's &
> 1 laptop that I can then access the mail, leaving it on the server for
> say 2 weeks them deleted. There is 1 email account someone@isp.co.uk
> (ie filtered by the someone).
> I don't need anything too fancy & easy to setup.
> I have been using Slack for a few years, so I can find my way around,
> but when I tried to do this a couple of years ago I made a right mess
> of it.
> My question is
> 1. Should I stick with 10.1 or upgrade to 12
> 2. What software should I install.

Slackware 10 will be fine. I use postfix with spamassassin on my
Slackware 10 box; configuring the two to work together is fairly
straightforward and well-documented. I'm sure someone knows how to
configure sendmail with spamassassin, too, if you prefer not to replace
your MTA.

--keith

--
kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://www.therockgarden.ca/aolsfaq.txt
see X- headers for PGP signature information

On Mon, 8 Oct 2007, Lez wrote:

> 1. Should I stick with 10.1 or upgrade to 12

10 is fine, as Pat will no doubt support it for a few more years to come
yet.

> 2. What software should I install.

MailScanner www.mailscanner.info
SpamAssassin cpan -i Mail::SpamAssassin
(if you dont have cpan use: perl -MCPAN -e 'install Mail::SpamAssassin'
Then also head over to www.clamav.net for a free virus scanner.

This works well with Sendmail, Qmail, Exim and Postfix


--

Cheers
Res

On Mon, 08 Oct 2007 14:04:36 -0700, Keith Keller wrote:

> Slackware 10 will be fine. I use postfix with spamassassin on my
> Slackware 10 box; configuring the two to work together is fairly
> straightforward and well-documented. I'm sure someone knows how to
> configure sendmail with spamassassin, too, if you prefer not to replace
> your MTA.

I see you're using postfix, but I'm wondering if anyone is using
spamassassin with sendmail. I set it up several years ago and I
found it sort of messy. I had to install about 8 perl modules,
recompile sendmail, mess with some other stuff I can't remember
right now. Anyway, I felt it messed with sendmail too much and
I didn't reinstall it after a few sendmail upgrades. I guess
I'm asking is it a pretty clean setup nowadays? For someone
who is kind of neurotic.

Julien

Julien Mills wrote:
> On Mon, 08 Oct 2007 14:04:36 -0700, Keith Keller wrote:
>
>
>>Slackware 10 will be fine. I use postfix with spamassassin on my
>>Slackware 10 box; configuring the two to work together is fairly
>>straightforward and well-documented. I'm sure someone knows how to
>>configure sendmail with spamassassin, too, if you prefer not to replace
>>your MTA.
>
>
> I see you're using postfix, but I'm wondering if anyone is using
> spamassassin with sendmail. I set it up several years ago and I
> found it sort of messy. I had to install about 8 perl modules,
> recompile sendmail, mess with some other stuff I can't remember
> right now. Anyway, I felt it messed with sendmail too much and
> I didn't reinstall it after a few sendmail upgrades. I guess
> I'm asking is it a pretty clean setup nowadays? For someone
> who is kind of neurotic.
>
> Julien

On my workstation I run ClamAv and SpamAssassin from sendmail's
local delivery agent (procmail). This can be done without
any adjustment in sendmails configuration.
The drawback is that filtering happens during the final
delivery of the mail; way too late to reject messages you don't
want. But if you're using POP or IMAP to fetch mail from
your ISP's server its too lat anyway to reject messages.

On the inbound mailservers at work I filter during the
smtp-conversation before the sever accepts responsibilety
for the message. That way I can simply reject anything
I don't want (spam, viruses, mail for unknown users)
and let the sender do the error handling.
I'm using Clamav and SpamAssassin for the virus and
spam checking and MimeDefang as the tool between
sendmail and these two scanners.
Mimdefang (www.roaringpenguin.com) is a very flexible
tool if you want to do smart things during smtp
mail transmission.

MimeDefang uses sendmail's milter api to communicate
with sendmail. You don't need to recompile senmail.
Depending on the functionality you need/want you'll
still have to install several perl modules.

Regards,

Kees.

--
Kees Theunissen.

I am sorry I didn't explain myself properly.
I want my server to simply act as a post box where I can pickup the
mail, from a laptop pc etc, using an email client. the server is in
the cupboard upstairs connected to the internet.
When I said what software should I install, I should have said, what
software should I use.
I have tried to understand thing like fetchmail etc. but don't fully
understand what they do.
I assume fetchmail brings the mail in, but to where, & what do I need
to setup next.
I think the problem is there is so many good programs out there doing
this job I don't know where to start looking.
Thanks for the replies, it sounds as if I have to do a bit more
homework.
Lez

Lez wrote:
[mail]
> I think the problem is there is so many good programs out there doing
> this job I don't know where to start looking.

i don't know if anyone has already pointed this out, but back in the days,
the linux documentation project was all the rage. they have two HOWTOs on
mail, which i found helpful back when i thought i needed to understand how
mail worked. (i no longer feel that way. ;-)

i just checked it out, they're still there, but they haven't been updated
for a while. still, i reckon most of the info is still valid, so you may
want to have a look anyway:

<http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Mail-User-HOWTO/index.html>
<http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Mail-Administrator-HOWTO.html>

HTH

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:27:40 +0000, Joost Kremers wrote:

> Lez wrote:
> [mail]
>> I think the problem is there is so many good programs out there doing
>> this job I don't know where to start looking.
>
> i don't know if anyone has already pointed this out, but back in the
> days, the linux documentation project was all the rage. they have two
> HOWTOs on mail, which i found helpful back when i thought i needed to
> understand how mail worked. (i no longer feel that way. ;-)
>
> i just checked it out, they're still there, but they haven't been
> updated for a while. still, i reckon most of the info is still valid, so

Hmm, just a few days ago, I was bored I guess, and I was looking through
all the HOWTOs to see the dates. Very few are anywhere near up to date,
most seem to be from 2000, 2001 or so.

So what has happened? People are relying on the documentation that comes
with each program? And, in general, more people have a pretty good idea
how to do things maybe? Probably it is easier to set up a linux box now
than is was about 5-6 years ago.

Julien Mills wrote:
> Hmm, just a few days ago, I was bored I guess, and I was looking through
> all the HOWTOs to see the dates. Very few are anywhere near up to date,
> most seem to be from 2000, 2001 or so.

yes, i noticed that too. i looked at the home page of tldp.org, to see if
they closed down shop or something. but they still list updates to HOWTOs:
<http://www.tldp.org/sorted_howtos.html> lists five updates in the past two
months.

but there used to be a time that you couldn't go a day in linux-related
usenet groups without hearing about tldp.org (at least, that's my
impression). nowadays they're hardly mentioned at all...


--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com> says:
>Julien Mills wrote:
>> Hmm, just a few days ago, I was bored I guess, and I was looking through
>> all the HOWTOs to see the dates. Very few are anywhere near up to date,
>> most seem to be from 2000, 2001 or so.

>yes, i noticed that too. i looked at the home page of tldp.org, to see if
>they closed down shop or something. but they still list updates to HOWTOs:
><http://www.tldp.org/sorted_howtos.html> lists five updates in the past two
>months.

Slackware hasn't had a new user since 2001, so what difference does
it make?

cordially, as always,

rm