Sendmail is the most widely used MTA out there and has absolutely no information for new users. Every site I've been to for the past 2 days has been a totally different configuration for RH8 and seems to be geared for the very experienced Linux user. Can someone please help me by telling me where to find a newbies sendmail guide that goes through these steps slowly:

Configuring Sendmail with SSL
Making sure it works with RH8
setting up your email (eg. yourname@yourcompany.ca) with Pine
setting up other users


Any hints would be great. I have sendmail working but can only email out through Pine. I cannot reply to that message on another machine. I do not get message undeliverable mind you, it just disappears and I never get it on my RH machine.

Thanks!

Robb

Have you thought of using Qmail? try this link: http://cr.yp.to

People rave over it's stability, reliability, and security features.

It is well documented. I did find the configuration a bit detailed and will involve some study of dns and qmail.

Sendmail is not an easy animal to get your teeth around. It is however one of those deals where once you get it going, you don't have to mess with it. It just runs in the background doing it's thing. It is not possible to give you the complete instructions in this format. It will take some research on your part. My own personal experience was just like yours. All the websites and docs assume that you are an experienced user and should already know what to do. I will however give some of the basics and direct you to some places of info for the rest. The configuration of sendmail is primarily done with a file called sendmail.mc located in /etc/mail. This file allows you to do the basic configuration to get it up and running and allow for some tweaks later. You will need to have your domain name, public ip address, and depending on how you get from your machine out to the internet, some info relating to that path. The sendmail.mc file has notes in it to help. You will also have to have all who will be using sendmail as a mail server entered as users on the machine. This is straightforward. Now after you finish with the configuration in the sendmail.mc file you will have to actually convert that file to the configuration file. I am not sure about your distro,but in RH9 you have to use the m4 engine to do this. It is a simple one line instruction to do this so not a lot of coding. Then you will have to restart sendmail and there you go. This is very simplified, but gives you the basics. If you will be maintaining this server, then you must obtain some references. The one I have found most valuable is an O'Reilly book simply called "Sendmail". Get it, read it, memorize it. It can be way more than you need, but will definitely give you the answers. I have set up several mail servers and this is my main reference. It will answer the other questions that you have asked. Now, to ramble a bit. You may ask why I don't just tell you all the configuration? The reason goes back to an old saying," Give a man a fish - feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish - feed him for a lifetime" If I (or anybody else) were to give you all the answers, then if the s*?%t hits the fan, you will be up the creek. If you have had to dig for some of the answers, you will be much more likely to recover gracefully. Now, that being said, if you cannot get access to the manuals, then repost and I'll help. I hope this doesn't sound harsh, I don't mean it to. If you get into the configuration and need help, then repost. I am sure myself or one of the others will be glad to help. It's just this format doesn't lend itself to lead someone all the way through the configuration. Try looking at the files I mentioned and try and get the book and we'll go from there. Repost if you have any questions at all.