I'd like to configure a mail server that would do both POP3/SMTP and was wondering what would be best to use for this. would sendmail be best?

Thanks!

Chris

SMTP and POP3 are different tasks. SMTP is used for sending email POP3 offers the posibility to retrieve e-mail. sendmail ist just a MTA (a mail transport agent). It can't offer POP3. You need a POP3 server for that!

Check www.freshmeat.net for POP3 servers ...

I'm well aware of the differences between the two protocols and as far as I thought sendmail had the capability to also receive mail as well. I've been to freshmeat to look at some apps there but as I mentioned in my first post... I was looking for some suggestions from some of you guys that have configured some POP3/SMTP solutions and what you used.

Thanks,

Chris

Depends how complicated you want to get.

Sendmail sends and recieves mail fine but local delivery is to the system mailboxes which require a seperate system user account for each mailbox. You can access these via pop3 if you enable the ipop3d daemon that comes with linux.

This is fine for a few mailboxes/one domain. If you want to host multiple domains/lots of mailboxes you need something more.

I personally run qmail with various add-ons, which gives me virtual domains, web admin, and pop3/imap access. For guidance on hoe to set it up, I can heartily recommend http://www.lifewithqmail.org which has a step by step quide to getting it running. (Note qmail replaces sendmail on your system).

Another alternative is cyrus-imap which I believe is quite popular.

Hope this helps.

for pop3 service, look for qpopper.