[plug] mail server queries

[Onno Benschop]

On Thu, 2004-04-08 at 23:08, smclevie wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I wonder if I can be set straight in a few things.
> 
> I want to set up a basic mail server app on Debian.
> 
> I am looking at installing Fetchmail, Exim4, Mutt and Qpopper.
> 
> At this time I am trying to send mails on the Debian box (hostname: debian) 
> to myself (steve at debian).
> 
> Q.  How do I create my mailbox?  What about mailboxes for other users??
> 
> Mutt says, ".... is not a mailbox" or ".... does not exist" depending upon 
> my fiddling with .muttrc in my HOME directory.
> 
> echo $MAIL returns empty
> echo $MAILPATH returns empty
> 
> It would seem I have no mailboxes.

Uhm, AFAIK your mail sits in a spool file until your mail program
retrieves it. I'd expect mutt to make a directory structure and store
mail.

I'm also assuming that you've already configured exim when you installed
it, if not, I suspect that you can configure it with dpkg-reconfigure.

At the very minimum you'll need to set it up for local delivery.


> If someone would be kind enough to send any appropriate config files this 
> would be MOST appreciated.

In debian, you get an interface to play with, so config files copied
from other places is IMHO generally not a good way to go about things.


> I believe I'm sending mail to myself, then I'm configuring Exim4 then 
> Fetchmail and lastly Qpopper.

This all depends on what you understand each of these applications to
provide.

exim is an application that transfers mail in and out of your machine.
It's known as an MTA, just like sendmail. It provides a mechanism to
send mail to other servers and a way to receive email. The protocol used
is SMTP.

fetchmail  is  a mail-retrieval and forwarding utility; it fetches mail
from  remote  mailservers  and  forwards  it  to  your  local  (client)
machine's  delivery  system.   You  can  then handle the retrieved mail
using normal mail user agents such as mutt(1), elm(1) or Mail(1).   The
fetchmail utility can be run in a daemon mode to repeatedly poll one or
more systems at a specified interval. It speaks all manner of languages,
POP and IMAP being the most popular.

qpopper provides a service so your external email application like
Eudora can retrieve email from your machine using the POP protocol.


> Oh BTW, does KMail interfere with anything?  ... Could it help??

KMail is a mail reading application, like mutt and Eudora.


> Thanks again for your helps guys,

That all depends on the usefulness of the help provided :-)


Onno Benschop 

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