POP/IMAP Only Mail Server Setup?
 

Newb question here:

I want to set up something like a POP/IMAP mail server, I think...

I know NOTHING about setting up mail servers, but I can figure out
the set up of the actual software. The problem is whether the software
will do what I want. This is what I want to do, and I want to start out
in a way that I can understand. I think that I just want to set up a
POP/IMAP server only. I do not want a domain associated with the
mailserver.

I want to set up the mail server to check and download email for all of
our accounts from various POP servers and store it on our Debian sarge business server on our private network. Then, each user can download his/her
email for the given account from the business server at whatever point
they want. I want them to have the capability of leaving mail on the
business server or removing it (IMAP/POP).

For sending mail, I just want to use our ISP's smtp server, so I do not
need a smtp server. I can just use the local machine's MTA to send the
mail. So, the send process can bypass the mail server.

How would you suggest that I do this? Would sendmail, exim, qmail do
this? Are there any links that cover this that you would suggest?

Thanks!

PB

this sounds a but fuzzy ni what you want... you can't let users choose to delete the remote emails when it's an automatic process... :confused:

anyway, some pointers... you won't want exim, qmail etc.... these are smtp servers, and you've already said you don't want one.

in order to download normal emails from nomal pop3 or imap services, you need fetchmail. while this is a daemonized service, it is not a server, as it doesn't actually serve anything.

and as for the internal imap / pop3, well the standard wu-imap package would suit you, as should others like courier imap.

i still can't see why they can't just connect to the remote servers in the first place though... doesn't sem to be any benefits from your suggestions.

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your quick reply - sorry about my late reply.

Here's why I want to do this: the remote servers are only POP and I want the mail to stay on the server. Reason: there have mail integrity problems recently with our email clients/ISP and I want to make sure that everyone's mail is replicated and traceable. I hope that this makes sense.

I did a bit of research with your reply and here's what I'm going to try - no "mail servers" needed!

1. as you suggest, fetchmail for the user emails from the ISP's POP server.
2. maildrop to do the filtering on the server for folders.
3. courier-imap as the IMAP pathway from the server to the clients.
4. client readers, such as mutt, outhouse express, outhouse, thunderbird and evolution.

Sound reasonable?

PB

yeah pretty much. only thing you might need to look at is the interface for courier. I can't honestly remember offhand, but i think that it works the imap folders in a pretty different way to noraml imap layouts. i might be thinking about cyrus-imap, i might just be plain wrong...!