Hello,

I would very much appreciate help, first I want to say that I have done a lot of online searching, and have read many articles. So I have been trying to get this to work for over a month now.

Ok, so I want to set up sendmail on RedHat 7.1.

I want to use this machine for a mail server. I just would like to send and receive mail using this server. I want to create my own email address, and send it off, and also tell my friends they can send me mail to this server.

Ok dumb question #1:

I do not have a domain name. I have a static IP address. Can I somehow send/receive/configure this server, using just my IP? Something like michelle@myipaddress ? -- would this work? I have received emails before from localhost.localdomain, (well in brackets is the IP) is this how they do it, by using an IP and not a domain name? I have configured files every which way, nothing works.

# 2

I can't even get sendmail to send mail using SMTP, as an option in Slypheed. It seems sendmail will start, but after that I just don't know what to do. And I am really confused now about using POP3 or IMAP, and qmail throws another wrench in mess.

Can someone please help me, send me info on how to do this? Sorry if I sound stupid out here, but I really am trying

Thanks in advance

Michelle

No question is dumb IMO, not asking, that's dumb...

1. I'm afraid not*. See, a Mail Transfer Agent (like sendmail) will have to query a Domain Name Server for the domain where the user hangs out. The domain the user receives mail at might be called "bogus.net", so you'd write to "someone@bogus.net", but the mail may actually be delivered to a different mailserver "mail.bogoid.org", in DNS speak they say mail.bogoid.org is the MX host for bogus.net (and maybe more domains).
Localhost resolves to your box automagically (look in /etc/hosts), so the MTA doesn't need to contact a DNS for knowing where to deliver it.

2. To be able to send mail, you don't need sendmail to run continuously, it'll find out by itself what it has to do. To receive mail, if your server is known as a mailserver (it's in a MX record), you need sendmail to run as daemon.
Since a lot of ppl don't have that, they run an application called "fetchmail" that retrieves mail from remote servers.


*Some dynamic DNS providers allow MX records, virtual mappings, email redirection etc, etc, whatever it's called, but I never used those.