I've asked about setting up the company's "server", actually just a
gateway for the lan, with Samba, Apache, proftpd, and whatever comes
out of the box. I'm on a dynamic IP, but www.zoneedit has given me
a nice script to update the nameserver when I get a new IP, like
when we have to reboot "the server".

The boss wants email, and I don't even know where to start. Well,
I know we need an MX record, which I have no idea how to construct,
and need to write a sendmail.cf file, which I also have no idea how
to do, and don't know what-all else it wound need.

It seems that about a year or so ago, someone had volunteered to walk
me through the ordeal, but I don't remember who it was.

Is there something I can just drop in, and voila, have an email
server painlessly?

The boss is getting a little frustrated, and threatened to call in
a pro, i.e., pay money to someone that's not me; what would it take
to get it done in, say, a day?

Thanks,
Rich

On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 18:46:06 +0000, Rich Grise wrote:

> I've asked about setting up the company's "server", actually just a
> gateway for the lan, with Samba, Apache, proftpd, and whatever comes
> out of the box. I'm on a dynamic IP, but www.zoneedit has given me
> a nice script to update the nameserver when I get a new IP, like
> when we have to reboot "the server".
>
> The boss wants email, and I don't even know where to start. Well,
> I know we need an MX record, which I have no idea how to construct,
> and need to write a sendmail.cf file, which I also have no idea how
> to do, and don't know what-all else it wound need.
>
> It seems that about a year or so ago, someone had volunteered to walk
> me through the ordeal, but I don't remember who it was.
>
> Is there something I can just drop in, and voila, have an email
> server painlessly?
>
> The boss is getting a little frustrated, and threatened to call in
> a pro, i.e., pay money to someone that's not me; what would it take
> to get it done in, say, a day?

According to Zoneedit, here's how to set it up:
<zoneedit help>
May I see an example of a Mail Server (MX) record?
In this example, we have a mail server called "mail.abiengr.com" and we
want this server to have primary responsibility for mail sent to
addresses like user@abiengr.com.

Remember, you must also create an IP address (A) record for
"mail.abiengr.com".
####
####
#
# OK, now here I'm confused - We have only one IP number here.
# does this mean I should set the IP number in the A record that's
# say, mail.abiengr.com, pointing to the same IP as www.abiengr.com,
# and sort it out on this end?
#
####
####
Example form: (this form is an example only, and will not affect your
DNS)

mail.abiengr.com handles mail0 for domainabiengr.com
Or, you may abbreviate to achieve the same results by removing the
".abiengr.com" from the end.
mail handles mail0 for domain

In Example 2, we can assign "othermail.abiengr.com" as a failover server to handle email traffic for "abiengr.com" in case the primary server, "mail.abiengr.com", goes down.
(Caution: this may require some configuration on your mail servers!)

Example 2: (this form is an example only, and will not affect your DNS)

othermail handles mail5 for domain
Remember, you must also create an IP address (A) record for "othermail.abiengr.com".
Return To FAQ
</zoneedit help>

As you can see, I'm already confused. And I'm terrified to try to mess
with the sendmail config files; I don't know where to start, or even
where on my drive to find the human-editable config file "source".

As I've said, so far, I've got the sendmail config stuff that came
out of the box with 11.0

Is there any other information I can provide here?

Thanks in advance,
Rich

On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:06:48 +0000, Rich Grise wrote:

> On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 18:46:06 +0000, Rich Grise wrote:
>
>> I've asked about setting up the company's "server", actually just a
>> gateway for the lan, with Samba, Apache, proftpd, and whatever comes
>> out of the box. I'm on a dynamic IP, but www.zoneedit has given me
>> a nice script to update the nameserver when I get a new IP, like
>> when we have to reboot "the server".

OK, just to show I'm not only sitting on my butt here, I see
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf, but it says:
################################################## ###################
################################################## ####################
#####
##### SENDMAIL CONFIGURATION FILE
#####
##### built by root@tree on Sat Sep 30 19:34:03 CDT 2006
##### in /tmp/sendmail-8.13.8/cf/cf
##### using ../ as configuration include directory
#####
################################################## ####################
#####
##### DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE! Only edit the source .mc file.
#####
################################################## ####################
################################################## ####################
------------</quote>

But
user@ABIServer:/etc/mail
$ find / -name sendmail.mc -print 2> /dev/null
user@ABIServer:/etc/mail
$

So, ???????

Thanks,
Rich

On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:13:47 +0000, Rich Grise wrote:

> user@ABIServer:/etc/mail
> $ find / -name sendmail.mc -print 2> /dev/null
> user@ABIServer:/etc/mail
> $
>
> So, ???????

OK, so I try it as root:
----------
root@ABIServer:~
# find / -name sendmail.mc -print
find: WARNING: Hard link count is wrong for /proc: this may be a bug in
your filesystem driver. Automatically turning on find's -noleaf option.
Earlier results may have failed to include directories that should have
been searched.
root@ABIServer:~
#
------------
Now I'm frightened.

Thanks,
Rich

On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:20:28 +0000, Rich Grise wrote:
> On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:13:47 +0000, Rich Grise wrote:
>> user@ABIServer:/etc/mail
>> $ find / -name sendmail.mc -print 2> /dev/null
>> user@ABIServer:/etc/mail
>> $
>>
>> So, ???????
>
> OK, so I try it as root:
> ----------
> root@ABIServer:~
> # find / -name sendmail.mc -print
> find: WARNING: Hard link count is wrong for /proc: this may be a bug in
> your filesystem driver. Automatically turning on find's -noleaf option.
> Earlier results may have failed to include directories that should have
> been searched.
> root@ABIServer:~
> #
> ------------
> Now I'm frightened.

OK, I lied:
------
root@ABIServer:~
# find / -name "sendmail*" -print
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf
/pub/Server/Rich/sendmail.8.13.7.tar
/var/log/packages/sendmail-cf-8.13.8-noarch-4
/var/log/packages/sendmail-8.13.8-i486-4
/var/log/scripts/sendmail-8.13.8-i486-4
/usr/bin/sendmail
/usr/doc/sendmail-8.13.8
/usr/lib/php/Mail/sendmail.php
/usr/lib/sendmail
/usr/man/man8/sendmail.8.gz
/usr/sbin/sendmail
/usr/local/home/user/ServerCopy/Rich/sendmail.8.13.7.tar
/usr/share/jed/lib/sendmail.sl
/usr/share/emacs/21.4/lisp/mail/sendmail.el
/usr/share/emacs/21.4/lisp/mail/sendmail.elc
/usr/share/sendmail
/usr/share/sendmail/cf/cf/sendmail-slackware-tls.mc
/usr/share/sendmail/cf/cf/sendmail-slackware-tls-sasl.mc
/usr/share/sendmail/cf/cf/sendmail-slackware.mc
/usr/share/sendmail/sendmail-slackware-tls.cf
/usr/share/sendmail/sendmail-slackware-tls-sasl.cf
/usr/share/sendmail/sendmail-slackware.cf
find: WARNING: Hard link count is wrong for /proc: this may be a bug in your filesystem driver. Automatically turning on find's -noleaf option. Earlier results may have failed to include directories that should have been searched.
root@ABIServer:~
#
-----

But I'm still at a loss; but I think I'll at least LOOK at
/usr/share/sendmail/cf/cf/sendmail-slackware.mc ,
but I still have to do all of that other stuff that I have no idea how
to do or what.

Kinda like those dreams where I know there's something vitally important
that I absolutely must do, but have no clue what it is. Or, I'm in
school, and can't find my locker and have no idea what room I'm supposed
to go to.

Thanks,
Rich

On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 20:43:21 +0000, Rich Grise wrote:
>
> But I'm still at a loss; but I think I'll at least LOOK at
> /usr/share/sendmail/cf/cf/sendmail-slackware.mc ,
> but I still have to do all of that other stuff that I have no idea how
> to do or what.
>

OK, I've got /usr/share/sendmail/cf/cf/sendmail-slackware.mc up on
a console, and I still have no clue.

Thanks,
Rich

Rich Grise <rich@example.net> wrote:
> The boss wants email, and I don't even know where to start. Well,
> I know we need an MX record, which I have no idea how to construct,
> and need to write a sendmail.cf file, which I also have no idea how
> to do, and don't know what-all else it wound need.

The quick and easy solution would be to get an account on a web-hotel. On
most of those you will not only get web pages but also a domain with email
accounts and email forwarders.

Yes, it is also possible to run your own server with DNS pointing to your
server for both web and mail, but especially as you don't even have a
fixed IP address I would prefer to put those services on a web hotell.

There might be a comment in sendmail.cf to not edit that file, but it is
possible to edit it anyway. I have been editing that file a few times,
usually to set a smart relay or change some timeout values. However, I
have only configured sendmail for internal networks or sending smtp only,
I have never configured sendmail to accept email from internet. If you
mess that up your server might end up as an open relay flooding the rest
of internet with spam.

regards Henrik
--
The address in the header is only to prevent spam. My real address is:
hc1(at)poolhem.se Examples of addresses which go to spammers:
root@localhost postmaster@localhost

On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 23:50:22 +0200, Henrik Carlqvist wrote:
> Rich Grise <rich@example.net> wrote:
>> The boss wants email, and I don't even know where to start. Well,
>> I know we need an MX record, which I have no idea how to construct,
>> and need to write a sendmail.cf file, which I also have no idea how
>> to do, and don't know what-all else it wound need.
>
> The quick and easy solution would be to get an account on a web-hotel. On
> most of those you will not only get web pages but also a domain with email
> accounts and email forwarders.
>
> Yes, it is also possible to run your own server with DNS pointing to your
> server for both web and mail, but especially as you don't even have a
> fixed IP address I would prefer to put those services on a web hotell.
>
> There might be a comment in sendmail.cf to not edit that file, but it is
> possible to edit it anyway. I have been editing that file a few times,
> usually to set a smart relay or change some timeout values. However, I
> have only configured sendmail for internal networks or sending smtp only,
> I have never configured sendmail to accept email from internet. If you
> mess that up your server might end up as an open relay flooding the rest
> of internet with spam.
>

The PHB wants mail that's addressed to jivy@abiengr.com to show up on
our server, rather than redirecting it to his AOL account.

Would this "web-hotel" make it look like we have a real mail server
here, on the box where we have our website?

Thanks,
Rich

Rich Grise wrote:
> I've asked about setting up the company's "server", actually just a
> gateway for the lan, with Samba, Apache, proftpd, and whatever comes
> out of the box. I'm on a dynamic IP, but www.zoneedit has given me
> a nice script to update the nameserver when I get a new IP, like
> when we have to reboot "the server".
>
> The boss wants email, and I don't even know where to start. Well,
> I know we need an MX record, which I have no idea how to construct,
> and need to write a sendmail.cf file, which I also have no idea how
> to do, and don't know what-all else it wound need.

Don't run a server for inbound mail if you have a dynamic IP.
Senders will cache your IP number, probably only for a few minutes,
and try to connect to that number. So you risk losing mail if your IP
number changes.

And regarding outbound messages: lots of spam filters out there will
simply refuse connections comming from dynamic address ranges
because almost all mail from such addresses happens to be spam.
End users are supposed to send their mail through their ISP's
mail server.

There are a few options:
-- pay for a (business) account with a fixed IP-number
-- arrange with your ISP that mail for your domain will be accepted
by their mail servers.
-- use services from a third party hosting provider.
But -if you value reliable mail services- don't run your own MX
on a dynamic IP number!

>
> It seems that about a year or so ago, someone had volunteered to walk
> me through the ordeal, but I don't remember who it was.
>
> Is there something I can just drop in, and voila, have an email
> server painlessly?
>
> The boss is getting a little frustrated, and threatened to call in
> a pro, i.e., pay money to someone that's not me; what would it take
> to get it done in, say, a day?

A real pro won't configure such a mail system.

Regards,

Kees.

--
Kees Theunissen.

Henrik Carlqvist wrote:
> Rich Grise <rich@example.net> wrote:

> There might be a comment in sendmail.cf to not edit that file, but it is
> possible to edit it anyway. I have been editing that file a few times,
> usually to set a smart relay or change some timeout values. However, I

You'll loose your changes whenever you need to update the sendmail.cf
file after a sendmail update.


Regards,

Kees.

--
Kees Theunissen