Hi All,
I am a novice user when it comes to linux. Currently, I am working on setting up a home based (xDSL powered) web/email server for personal use and to host few domains for others.
I have several questions that I need help with from all of you - well, whoever is reading this thread
First of all I am debating between 2 distributions - CentOS 4.2 and Fedora 4 (both 64 bit editions). Anyways, most likely I'll go with CentOS I think - any comments welcome on this one.
I am thinking of following the "life with qmail" instructions (
http://www.lifewithqmail.org/lwq.html#installation) to install qmail. And probably, install vpopmail to administer virtual domains. That means, I am thinking of using qmail-pop3d to take care of the pop requests. I am also thinking of providing only incoming emails service for the users and I don't want my server to be responsible for outgoing emails (people can use their ISP's smtp server for outgoing).
Now, given the above scenario do I need to setup "smtp" anyways to make the qmail work properly(following the life with qmail instructions)??
Secondly, do I have to have a FQDN for my server to make the qmail work and provide service for the virtual domains?? In other words, If I leave the domain name of my server to be "localhost.localdomain" can I provide all of the above mentioned services?
I also found the following guide to install and configure qmail:
Full Qmail Installation and Configuration Guide
or
Qmail+Vmailmgr+Tcpserver+RBL+SpamAssassin+Relay-CTRL
+Qmail-Scanner+Courier IMAP Guide+POP3S+SMTPS
http://megaz.arbuz.com/2002/12/20/qmail-howto/1/
I tried following the above on a testing machine - everthing was working until I got to configuring IMAP server - I think the instructions provided for that sections is little old for the current version the courier IMAP and I was't finding the files in the right place according to the instructions. So, I think I messed up a little after that point.
Now, I am talking about IMAP not because I really want to offer IMAP capability to check/retrieve emails but I *sort of* understood that I need to have this running if I want to offer "webmail" interface using squirrelmail. That's why I was playing with it.
Anyhow, my main questions are:
1)Do I need "smtp" setup on my server although I don't want people to send out emails using my server.
2) Do I need a FQDN for my server to make qmail work? That is, providing pop email service for virtual domains using vpopmail? In other words, reading the instructions from "life with qmail" - setting up qmail-pop3d it says to do the following:
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Create a /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-pop3d/run script containing:
#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/local/bin/softlimit -m 2000000 \
/usr/local/bin/tcpserver -v -R -H -l 0 0 110 /var/qmail/bin/qmail-popup \
FQDN /bin/checkpassword /var/qmail/bin/qmail-pop3d Maildir 2>&1
where FQDN is the fully qualified domain name of the POP server you're setting up, e.g., pop.example.net.
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My question is can I put in "localhost.localdomain" where it says FQDN to make qmail work with my above explained scenario??
Thank you guys. Please provide your thoughts - any help is really appreciated.