OK. I am writing because I am at my wits end. I am not an idiot to Linux, but I am when it comes to getting an email server setup. I am tring to set up an email server for 5 domains that I own. I have my own DNS server and it is configured correctly. Why can't email be as simple as dns zones?

Slackware 9 / Sendmail 8.12.8 with my box configured as:
hostname -f = mail.mydomain.com
domainname = mydomain.com

I am able to sent an email from my hotmail account to root@mail.mydomain.com and read the message via the mail program agent. (command line mail) However, I can not reply or send mail.

I thought you were suppose to send mail with sendmail. I must be doing something wrong. This is the original configuration from a freash installation of Slacware 9.1. After tring to make sense of the config files for Sendmail, I quit....

I have found several HOWTO's on setting up email servers and have tried 3 different ones. I have tried qmail from the lifewithqmail website and although I have been able to get the program up and running, I must have missed the part where it tells me how I can access the incomming mail. I tried the basic ./Mailbox, and tring to one other configuration to where I was suppose to be able to check mail via /usr/bin/mail, the command line mail program. I have tried 2 different Postfix HOWTO's. One that I thought was promissing was the web-cyradm, cyrus imapd/sasl, and MySQL. I did this one several times and still, my web-cyradm comes up in german or in english with all sorts of php line errors which I trace back until I get lost.

I hate asking for help. But like I said. I am at my wits end.
I would like some help on setting up an email server that will support 5 domain names (each domain having seperate users) and prefered to keep them organized with MySQL and not on my system (since I already know how to use MySQL). I want it on a Slackware 9 box with Pop3, Imap, and SMTP ....

Eventually, I would like to setup webmail like Squirrel Mial

Any recomendations on what to use for this case?
Thanks for any help!

I tend to shy away (OK run like hell away) from sendmail as it can be a bit of a task to setup (yes that's only my opinion) and the design of this cornerstone of the Internet is now showing its heritage. You may want to look at postfix or qmail. My personal preference is qmail and while the setup is a bit of a departure from the other popular mail servers the rewards are worth it. I'd strongly suggest you look at life with qmail and any of the qmail mirrors for some insight into what you can do with it. Combined with the right IMAP/POP and authentication agents you can build a very scalable mail server complete with virtual users, virus scanning and spam filtering.

Eyyi! 'qmail + cyrus' i beg to differ! ... 'sendmail + cyrus' for intensive mail systems anytime. 'postfix + cyrus' for small time biz

If you want to setup sendmail on Slackware 9.1, here's a walkthrough of how I set it up for my domain:

http://www.mindfrost82.com/forums/sh...=&threadid=647

I need help.......

I have decided to install cyrus on my Slack 9.1, but I can not get it working.
I have managed to compile it from source, but I do not know how to set it up.

Do you know a walkthrough for this?

.tgz(s) are great especilly on holidays or weekends when ur girlfriend's not around. try .src.rpm instead. use rpmbuild --rebuild ***.src.rpm. i found out it works great even when she's around i lost the link but if u google for cyrus src.rpm files, ul definately get where to download it.

By the way, av set it up fine with webcyradm+mysqld-max+sendmail on the slack & drak .. i guess that weekend she wasn't around

I have updated my website. The new link for my Sendmail on Slack 9.1 Walkthrough is posted below:

http://www.mindfrost82.com/showthread.php?t=647

I suggest replacing sendmail with postfix.

First, it is more secure, and behaves as gw or relayhost very well.
Its conf files (master.cf and main.cf) are much more "readable" than sendmail ones, you can edit with any text editor them.
It is possible to integrate any kind content filters to it (amavisd, amavisd-new, clamd ,bitdefender ,trendmicro and etc, with spamassassin and razor2)
you can add several imap-pop daemons to it. and there is enough documention for it, unfortunately not for slackware specially, but for openbsd, redhat , debian and etc, principles are same, and it builds fast from source.

Alternatives as courier are much more complicated. (must say, i have never get courier work OK).Never tried exim or q-mail too.
it is available at: www.postfix.org
check faq-s section and documents there.

give it a try.