hi,

i'm using a kubuntu desktop / ubuntu desktop on top of an ubuntu server installation. it's a development envi for my lamp setup.

what i with to setup next is :

an email client that would receive email messages from an email server
all on that same pc.

(i'm still not perfectly sure, but can i create a virtual domain for the email adds? like mymail.com for email addresses
test01@mymail.com and test02@mymail.com?)

currently, from what i've browsed, i need the email server app and the email client app.

the ubuntu server has postfix, from the initial installation,
and for the client, i'm not sure i've read it could be dovecot / courier or whatever?

from there, i'd ask what do i need to configure, or anything else i need to add for the setup?




i hope we're qualified to ask obvious questions here, it's a newbie section right?


this one's optional, but, is it ridiculously difficult to set this up from source?
i've been able to setup LAMP with the development tools PDT and mysql gui on a debian distro... or is it a different level altogether?

Are you wanting to setup an email server that can receive emails sent to test01@mymail.com? You will need to purchase this domain name is that is the case. If you just want your server to download email from an already existing account then you can use fetchmail. Dovecot will work in letting you download mail to a client using pop3. Basic dovecot really doesn't require much initial setup. Make sure port 110 is open on your server and start dovecot.

Dovecot isn't a client, its a server itself - an imap or pop server. Postfix is a mail transfer agent (or MTA) - effectively an smtp server. A client is something like Evolution/Thunderbirs/Outlook/KMail etc.

If you don't want to be able to access the domain from outside, you can use example.com (which cannot be assigned) or myserver.home, but be careful you don't select a "real" name, even though it probably won't make any difference.

ok, let me get this straight,
this means i absolutely can't setup a virtual email add? i was really wishing i'd be able to do it, like setting up virtual hosts in apache

this means all i would need is postfix, and thunderbird / KMail for my setup?

You can setup a virtual email if you only want to send emails internally.

If you only want to send/recieve emails internally and use a client to download mail then you will need postfix, an email client(tunderbird / Kmail), and dovecot. Dovecot allows you to download the emails using pop3.

alrightee, thanks

that's a start,

would i be correct in assuming that provided i already have the postfix from my initial ubuntu server installation, i just need to apt-get for kmail/thunderbird and dovecot
and dive into configurations?

You probably won't need to configure dovecot - it tends to work out of the box

Configuring kmail, etc is simple. I'd connect dovecot as an imap server rather than pop though and leave the emails on the server.

As centos said - you can use any domain name you want so long as you aren't trying to use the name externally.

Is postfix working OK already?

postfix seems to work fine, i'm sorry, i'm dumb as a box of hammers on this

i just found a tutorial thing that tests it on commandline and i was able to check the mail on commandline


and thanks to you guys, i really just wanted a good overview on this... which i have no success of finding browsing through tons of stuff

It's pretty simple, but tough to find a good overview - no problems.

Fire dovecot up, and try setting up an imap account in kmail or whatever, and see how you go. Let us know.

hi again,

it took a while for me to get to it...

i now have a working postfix installation, and i've tested it on the cli with this :
created local user account user01

telnet localhost 25
...
rcpt to:user01@localhost
...

and using mail, i was able to see the mail, great!

is it now possible to view user01's mail using kmail/thunderbird?
i can't seem to set it up right

pop account
accountname user01
login user01
password password
host localhost
port 110

transport:smtp
name user01
host localhost
port 25



result : using cli to check mail, i see the sent mails, i've created with kmail, using settings above

but when i try to fetch these emails via kmail :
cannot connect to localhost



i'm missing something / a lot probably, i hope someone can provide me with a piece of enlightenment?

Are you trying to connect from a different machine? if so, it's probably a firewall issue.

Otherwise, are you seeing anything in your logs (logs should always be one of the first things to look at)?

Edit - oops -just saw the localhost part above. Go the logs.

Try connecting as an imap client first. Note that dovecot won't be looking for a login name or password.

sorry i don't have dovecot on this setup, i did try IMAP however and ended up with the same result... could not connect to localhost

You've confused me. Dovecot is an imap and pop server, are you saying you have ho imap or pop server running? If so, of course kmail can't get mail by pop (or imap)

oh man, i'm very sorry, i missed that, i ruined the server setup with dovecot, and was just now testing the desktop installation with postfix recently acquired via apt-get

alright, it just worked with the dovecot pop

not sure if this is noteworthy, i got delayed just trying to reinstall / reconfig my server system... just because there's this funny button on the lower-left corner of evolution (default with gnome) that turns on and off the synching of mail...

i thought it was something wrong with my new ubuntu-desktop on top of ubuntu-server