Mail Server Theory

[northernwolf]

Ok, I've got this plan in my head that I'd like to create a mail server either on my FC6 or my Fedora 7 box, but I'm not sure how to go about this. What I'd like to do is create a place where my wife and I can access all of our mail (from several different accounts) via Outlook (for my wife's Win machine) Thunderbird (via my non-server machine) and via webmail when I'm away from home. The idea is that everything resides on the server, and no matter where I get mail from, we can access new mail and folders.

I've looked over the forums and I'm not sure how to go about making this work, almost all of the posts out there are about how to configure a mail server. Procmail, sendmail, fetch, ??? What do I need? Obviously I'm pretty new to all this, any help would be appreciated!

[forgottentq]

Ok.. this is a very complicated setup you are trying. First you need a way to retreive (i assume) pop3 mail and store all of it in a central location.. I'm sure there are some pretty decent shell scripts out there to accomplish this task for you. Then you need to decide on a mail server to host out that mail and link it to a mail box. Once you have the centrally located mail linked up to a mail box it should work fine.. The webmail portion of it is going to be a separate application and will require apache obviously. But for outlook/thunderbird it'll all be pop3. Good luck!!

[northernwolf]

Thanks for the reply forgottentq! So I guess I'm really looking for an example of what products will do what I need. For example, procmail and SquirrelMail. Or would I need something else as well? Once I determine what I need, I'll need to figure out how to configure it.

[onedumslack]

this is most definetly not a quick and easy setup but here is a good how to that's probably overkill but will get the job done and with virtual domain hosting. you can then add any webmail frontend you like. such as squirrelmail, or roundcube. there is no frontend for the database though so you would have to be using a mysql gui tools to add stuff or mysql command line.
Howto: ISP-style Email Server with Debian-Etch and Postfix 2.3

[paulsm]

Maybe it's easier to download "easy install" Linux disto, like the SME server.

SME Server Inc. - Home

Here you can simply enable a mailserver and a webmail client and add your users and emailaddresses via a nice graphical userinterface.

[davidcbrewmeister]

Maybe it's easier to download "easy install" Linux disto, like the SME server.

SME Server Inc. - Home

Here you can simply enable a mailserver and a webmail client and add your users and emailaddresses via a nice graphical userinterface.

Beat me to it...
I don't know about 7.2, but you're not supposed to run it "in the open" but behind a firewall on your network is fine. Although I had one running for about 4 years directly connected to the internet without issue... I also had a 20 character password that I used a generator to make and changed monthly...

[northernwolf]

Thanks to all who responded to this! I ran into some serious hardware issues that I've just managed to recover from, so I'm back to trying to get this going. I've just installed VMWare so I'll create a VM and try SME. I'll let everyone know how this goes.