Hello,

I have a question abolut mail set up. There lots of info out there but I am still not sure how this can be done.

Currently, I've got a servlet that sends out emails to users per their request. I use gmail services for it (smtp). Everything is coded in Java.

I've got a domain registered www.mydomain.net with www.dyndns.com service.
I want to be able to send out email and have the following email: myname@mydomain.net or support@mydomain.net.

How can I set this all up?
How can I access it later on? Is there a nice gui for it?

Thank you.

I've been using a mail server called Postfix for a while now, it uses smtp for both outbound and incoming. I have never had any problem with it whatsoever. Basically, by default it sets it up so that every user on your Linux box (or the ones you specify) has there own email account (<username>@yourdomain.tld). For a GUI, all I use Webmin. Webmin has the capability of managing all kinds of servers and many other things on your system (including Postfix). Before expecting it to work automatically, I suggest that if you use Webmin and Postfix, that you take a look at the Postfix section on one of the books you can download on Webmin's website. Also, if you are giving more than one person email accounts, you can use Usermin as a front end for sending, receiving, and reading mail.

http://www.postfix.org/
http://www.webmin.com/

EDIT: Also, if you just want to use gmail, you can setup your gmail account to receive and send mail in the domain and user of your choice, but you first must have a mail server setup to receive the confirmation email from gmail.

Thank you for your reply.
At this point I only want to set up one account.

As I understand if I want to go with this option I need to set up postfix and webmin on my server, right?
how much effort does it require considering I am new to Linux?

thanks

It's very easy, postfix should be available through your package manager, so that will be an easy install. For the Webmin install, I would suggest not using one of the RPM's, I've had more success installing Webmin on servers using the tar file. Once you unpack that file, just cd to that directory and run ./setup.sh. After you go through the install, just run /etc/webmin/start and you should be able to go to https://localhost:10000/ and login (that address is assuming you have ssl support and you choose port 10000). For configuring Postfix, you should be able to leave most things set to default, I don't remember the specifics, but I know that you would have to change the configuration to allow it to receive mail for your domain. That is simply a matter of typing your domain into a text field.

I don't bother with Webmin personally, but Postfix should work pretty much out of the box. You may need to do a little tinkering with main.cf, but it's pretty straightforward, and the info at postfix.org is excelent.

You will need to switch your mailer from sendmail, and there is a command to do this which a quick search tells me is "alternatives --config mta"

thanks,
how can I install it using package manager?

Which of these should I use:
webmin-1.270.tar.gz (Unix tar/gzip format, 9235 kB)
webmin-1.270-1.noarch.rpm (RPM suitable for Redhat, Caldera, SuSE, Mandrake or MSC Linux, 10081 kB)
webmin-1.270-1.src.rpm (Source RPM suitable for Redhat, Caldera, SuSE, Mandrake or MSC Linux, 9239 kB)
webmin-1.270-minimal.tar.gz (Minimal version of Webmin, Unix tar/gzip format, 1278 kB)

I've got Fedora Core 5 running.
I guess it will have to be first one?

thanks

Does your first question relate to Postfix or Webmin? Postfix should be part of the FC5 distro (bu you may not have installed it)

That is true, Postfix is with Fedora, but I already tried searching the yum repos for Webmin, it is not available. You should download the webmin-1.270.tar.gz.

thanks for webmin info.
I am not sure how to configure and get access to postfix though.
First question relates to postfix.

Thanks.

It's under add/remove software under applications (in gnome), then servers and mail server - optional packages

cool, thanks.
I just installed postfix and webmin. All went fine.
What do i do now?

Assuming that you set the basic parameters required - domain, etc., have you tried your java apps? I don't quite follow the question

try

mail -s "test" mailaddr@my.domain
enter text here and hit Ctrl-D


tail /var/log/maillog

to see if it looks OK then check the inbox for mailaddr@my.domain

thanks!
how, where do I set "basic" params?

Well it sounds like you can do these things from webmin, but on my system I edit main.cf in /etc/postfix.

Have a look at postfix.org and under documentation is a basic configuration page.

I suspect that for a bare minimum, setting the "mydomain" and maybe mailrelayhost if you don't send directly (ie through a relay). Then again, it may work as is.

If postfix is already running, you need to type "postfix reload" after chanfig the config.


Do you want to access emails or just send them btw?

Hello,

webmin looks complicated to me, there are sooooooo many options there that I just get lost.
Postfix is also not trivial and there is no step by step guide on postfix.org unfortunately.

I have a servlet that sends out email.
I've got something like this for now:
this works perfectly fine.

I want to be able to receive and send emails.

What would you suggest?

thanks