OK guys i'm a total noob when it comes to mail setups in fedora core 3. Basically this is what I want to do. I would like to know How people will send me e-mails my server recieve them organize them and ready to be accessed by pop3. Then I think I have the sendmail configuration down. I bough that book Fedora Linux 3 UNLEASHED. It just touches on the matter. (darn)

you could visit sendmail.org they have loads of documentation on how to configure mail.

You could also try "webmin" its a web interface to configuring the linux box. It makes configuration a breeze

I have webmin and it makes everything very easy to configure but from what I understand sendmail just sends the mail. I need to know how to make my linux box recieve e-mail and for others to be able to log-in via pop3 and people could download their e-mails. From what I understand I need to get some kind of exchange like server but I could be wrong.

If your sendmail is properly configured then it will deliver emails to local users to their mail boxes using the "procmail" mail client. Procmail is generaly installed by default by most distribution.

you can test this part by sending a mail and then looking at the contents of the user's file in the /var/spool/mail directory.

If you are downloaading emails from another external pop3 sever then you will have to use fetchmail to do so.

After you have the mails in the user mail box then for them to access these via outlook etc.. you will have to install the POP3/IMAP server

Install the imap rpm , this includes the POP3,imap binaries that are used to provide access to user mailboxes.

POP3 is older and has less features than IMAP.

after installing the package you need to enable them in their control files in the /etc/xinetd.d/ directory. then restart the xinetd service.

You can then access emails via your facourite email client.

You can also control access to these services using the /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny files.

Thanksfor the responce, After hours of tinkering I got sendmail to allow me to send and recieve e-mails with my domain name and now for another obsticle. I installed Cyrus because it came with fedora 3. Now I can't get it to allow me to log in via imap or pop3, secure or not. Any Ideas??? hosts file is set right I think.

Cyrus is a bit complicated to setup. Uninstall it
rpm -e cyrus-imap

use Add/Remove applications and install dovecot instead. Also install the dependency packages when prompted.

Next edit the /etc/dovecot.conf
find the following entries and change them to the following
protocols = pop3 imap
imap_listen = *
pop3_listen = *

save the file

start the dovecot service using
service dovecot start

use "ntsysv" to start it at boot time.

set sendmail procmail-mailer settings to its original settings if you have changed it for cyrus-imap.

Your pop3/imap should be working, i use the POP3 part havent tried the IMAP part.

Thanks a lot it works now. I initally thought dovecot only supported imap thats why i steered clear of it. Now that I have that working how can I set it up to be secure? When i tell it to use ssl and pop3s my colient connects and says invalid certificate.

I havent tried the SSL part but you could try the documentation at

http://www.dovecot.org/documentation.html

its quite comprehensive