[CentOS] Re: Installing Postfix/Dovecot

Thu Mar 27 20:36:53 UTC 2008
Giulio Troccoli <giulio.troccoli at tiscali.co.uk>


Scott Silva wrote:
> on 3-27-2008 12:46 PM Giulio Troccoli spake the following:
>>
>>
>> Scott Silva wrote:
>>> on 3-27-2008 12:04 PM Giulio Troccoli spake the following:
>>>> I have just installed CentOS 5.1 on my home server and I am trying 
>>>> to set a mail server.
>>>>
>>>> I have diligently followed the instructions on the Wiki - How To on 
>>>> the CentOS website (http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/postfix). However 
>>>> I cannot send internal email (I haven't yet tried externally).
>>>>
>>>> Do you have any suggestions on what to check? To test it I used two 
>>>> normail user: giulio and federica. I logged in as federica and sent 
>>>> an email to giulio with the mail programme. Is this correct (i.e. 
>>>> using the mail programme)?
>>>>
>>>> There is one thing that I don't quite understand from the 
>>>> instructions. In section 3.1 it's suggested to set
>>>>
>>>> mynetworks = 192.168.0.0/24, 127.0.0.0/8
>>>>
>>>> in the /etc/postfix/main.cf file. My home network however is 
>>>> 192.168.69.0 and actually the IP assigned to any computers in the 
>>>> networks start from 192.168.69.20. So I changed mynetworks to 
>>>> 192.168.69.0/24 and also 192.168.69.19/30 (as my server IP address 
>>>> is actully 192.168.69.25). I don't think this is the cause of my 
>>>> problem anyway, because it didn't work even with the value 
>>>> suggested by the Wiki page.
>>>>
>>> 192.168.69.0/24 should be the proper setting here. 192.168.69.19/30 
>>> is not a proper network. Are you absolutely sure that you did every 
>>> step in the howto?
>>>
>>> I used mail to send a test message and it worked fine ( after I read 
>>> the man page -- I haven't used mail to send a message for 20 years 
>>> or more!).
>>>
>>> There must be other errors in your postfix config.
>>>
>>> When you start postfix, does it throw any errors in the logs?
>>>
>>>
>> The 192.168.69.19/30 was just a test after 192.168.0.0/24 and 
>> 192.168.19.0/24 both failed (i.e. I could send an internal email). To 
>> make clearer this is what I have in my main.cf file
>>
>> mynetworks = 192.168.69.0/24, 127.0.0.0/8
>>
>> Starting Postfix does not throw any errors.
>>
>> I can download emails using POP3 with postfix and davecot, can't I? I 
>> don't have to use IMAP, right?
>>
> Dovecot is the server that provides POP3 and IMAP to the users. 
> Postfix is the server that moves mail from place to place.
>
> so you logged in as federica and sent an email to giulio. Did you then 
> log in as giulio and try to read the mail?
>
I did
> I haven't used mail in so long I am not sure if it works with maildir. 
> I think it reads from /var/spool/mail or /var/mail directly, but you 
> have set postfix to deliver to Maildir stores. You can also install 
> squirrelmail on the server and apache, and then just log in to 
> http://yourserver/webmail and read mail that way. But you would also 
> have to make sure dovecot is set up.
>
Actually both, as /etc/mail is a symlink to /etc/spool/mail. I wasn't 
expecting to find my email there but I did expect to be able to use 
Thunderbird to download my emails. So maybe there is something wrong 
with Dovecot....
> Have you thought of just using something like SME server (based on 
> CentOS 4) as your server?
> It does most of the work for you, and has a very user friendly admin 
> system through web pages.
>   
Ok, so maybe I've take the wrong path. This is what I am trying to achieve.

I want a mail server, obviously, with the ability to use both POP3 and 
IMAP. I usually download my emails on my laptop (and the other users, 
like federica, on their PCs), but I want also to be able to install a 
webmail (most likely squirrelmail). Finally I want to install majordomo 
to manage some MLs.


What do you suggest then?