After spending about 9 hours yesterday reading seemingly endless install docs, and man pages for courier ...

I am left with a non-working server in pretty much every respect for what I need.

Main problem I have is, it will not deliver to any of the virtual users in the mysql database that has been setup for it.

The authdeamond is set to only use authmysql... but apparently that is only used for POP and IMAP remotein connections to GET the mail. It doesnt appear to be used by courier itself to DELIVER the mail? I mean whats up with that? How do you deliver mail to mailboxes that virtual users can remotely imap in to get????

Of course none of the docs say how to actually USE courier!!! Just goes endless about how to install it, and configure it to do ... nothing. At least thats what it seems anyhow.

I'm about to scrap all of courier and attempt to install the even more confusing Qmail ... guh, I really dont want to do this, since courier contains all the parts (supposedly) for what I need.


My goal:
An email server that stores incoming mail of various domains (ie: blah.com duh.com and doy.com) to any number of virtual users under each domain (ie: NOT SYSTEM USERS!!!!!!).
Ability to remotely POP and IMAP in to get mail from any remote type email client (who uses 'pine'?!?!).
Ability to remotely relay email out from single trusted IP's (or using pop-before-smtp type setup).

Now... this has got to be the most commonly used setup I can think of for an email server... so why is documentation on how to set something up like this so damned scarce?! Its not like everyone in the world just inherantly KNOWS how to install and setup all the bits n pieces that are scattered across multiple sites, to make this... if so, why am I missing this gene?!?!

Anyhow...

Is it possible to do that with qmail? Without having to write my own authentication module? I mean, qmail doesnt even come with imap!??! guh ... lame. So I have to hack in some OTHER imap server, hoping they talk to each other. Which appears to not be the case with courier itself (it doesnt talk to itself when all its users are stored in the mysql database...).

Ive rambled long enough... I guess I am going to go WASTE ANOTHER COUPLE DAYS reading endlessly unhelpful docs about doing things that are no where near what I need to do in hopes that somethign might say one sentance somewhere that hints towards something I can fiddle with to make it actually work like Mac or NT email servers... crikey!