Linux Debian support - getting a mailserver working on Debian Sarge

Author

getting a mailserver working on Debian Sarge

Edward Langenback

2006-04-24, 8:06 am

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I'm fairly new to linux, recently migrating from a Windows 98 that blew up
one time too many.

I had a mailserver running in windows, (Mercury32) that I used for some
personal accounts and a few accounts for family members... pop3, smtp-auth,
anti-spam rules. I really want to get an equivalent service running on
linux so that I can recreate those email accounts and get back to 'normal'
email services.

I spent some time trying to make heads or tails of the exim4 package that
comes with Sarge, but While I did actually get it to send an email (once),
I never figured out how to add users, get it to allow pop3 and smtp
connections or anything else.

After a LOT of searching and reading, I settled on the Qmail setup described
in this article.

"Building and Advanced Mail Server"
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a...ail_server.html

I think I managed to get the mysql server installed and the database created
correctly. apt-get install openssl appeared to work without a hitch.
I ran into trouble installing ucspi-tcp. I got the source from the link in
the article, unpacked it, opened a root terminal and typed 'make'...
partway through the process it stopped with this error info:

( ( ./compile trylsock.c && \
../load trylsock -lsocket -lnsl ) >/dev/null 2>&1 \
&& echo -lsocket -lnsl || exit 0 ) > socket.lib
rm -f trylsock.o trylsock
../load tcpserver rules.o remoteinfo.o timeoutconn.o cdb.a \
dns.a time.a unix.a byte.a `cat socket.lib`
tcpserver.o(.text+0x5c0): In function `doit':
: undefined reference to `errno'
remoteinfo.o(.text+0x78): In function `mywrite':
: undefined reference to `errno'
remoteinfo.o(.text+0x118): In function `myread':
: undefined reference to `errno'
timeoutconn.o(.text+0x42): In function `timeoutconn':
: undefined reference to `errno'
timeoutconn.o(.text+0xd1): In function `timeoutconn':
: undefined reference to `errno'
cdb.a(cdb.o)(.text+0x10e): more undefined references to `errno' follow
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [tcpserver] Error 1
debian:/home/user1/ucspi-tcp-0.88#

Would someone please give me a clue what this latest hurdle is and how to
deal with it? I've put a the better part of three weeks into trying to
learn how to do this and right now I'm about ready to scream. A simple
MTA, create a couple dozen user accounts, SMTP & POP3 (TLS would be nice,
but what the hell, anything that works for starters. The rest can come
later)

On another note, is there a way to get Kmail to not verify gpg signatures
unless I explicitly request it? Something similar to un-ticking 'check
signatures automaticaly' in Knode.

Thanks for any help

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Jimchip

2006-04-24, 8:06 am

On 2006-04-23, Edward Langenback <none@none.com> wrote:
>
>
> I'm fairly new to linux, recently migrating from a Windows 98 that blew up
> one time too many.
>
> I had a mailserver running in windows, (Mercury32) that I used for some
> personal accounts and a few accounts for family members... pop3, smtp-auth,
> anti-spam rules. I really want to get an equivalent service running on
> linux so that I can recreate those email accounts and get back to 'normal'
> email services.
>
> I spent some time trying to make heads or tails of the exim4 package that
> comes with Sarge, but While I did actually get it to send an email (once),
> I never figured out how to add users, get it to allow pop3 and smtp
> connections or anything else.

I read below, too, and I just have a little paasing experience with qmail. I
have to say that what you're going through with qmail is a lot harder than
what I think is a similarly robust system provided by exim4. The 4.5x Sarg
is pretty easy to get going, even though it doesn't seem that way if you
*ugh* look at the config file.

Here's a few tips if you want to give Exim4 another try:
1)You need to use fetchmail and it has a configurator which, though slightly
obscure, let's you pop as many accounts from various servers, etc. as you
need.
2) Run 'dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config' as root in order to 'tweak' the
config file once you know what you want. (It was hard for me to answer all
the questions right initially because I wasn't sure what I wanted)

Anyway, I thought I'd mention a few things since what you wrote below would
make me give up on qmail.
>
> After a LOT of searching and reading, I settled on the Qmail setup described
> in this article.
>
> "Building and Advanced Mail Server"
> http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a...ail_server.html
>
> I think I managed to get the mysql server installed and the database created
> correctly. apt-get install openssl appeared to work without a hitch.
> I ran into trouble installing ucspi-tcp. I got the source from the link in
> the article, unpacked it, opened a root terminal and typed 'make'...
> partway through the process it stopped with this error info:
>
> ( ( ./compile trylsock.c && \
> ./load trylsock -lsocket -lnsl ) >/dev/null 2>&1 \
> && echo -lsocket -lnsl || exit 0 ) > socket.lib
> rm -f trylsock.o trylsock
> ./load tcpserver rules.o remoteinfo.o timeoutconn.o cdb.a \
> dns.a time.a unix.a byte.a `cat socket.lib`
> tcpserver.o(.text+0x5c0): In function `doit':
>: undefined reference to `errno'
> remoteinfo.o(.text+0x78): In function `mywrite':
>: undefined reference to `errno'
> remoteinfo.o(.text+0x118): In function `myread':
>: undefined reference to `errno'
> timeoutconn.o(.text+0x42): In function `timeoutconn':
>: undefined reference to `errno'
> timeoutconn.o(.text+0xd1): In function `timeoutconn':
>: undefined reference to `errno'
> cdb.a(cdb.o)(.text+0x10e): more undefined references to `errno' follow
> collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
> make: *** [tcpserver] Error 1
> debian:/home/user1/ucspi-tcp-0.88#
>
> Would someone please give me a clue what this latest hurdle is and how to
> deal with it? I've put a the better part of three weeks into trying to
> learn how to do this and right now I'm about ready to scream. A simple
> MTA, create a couple dozen user accounts, SMTP & POP3 (TLS would be nice,
> but what the hell, anything that works for starters. The rest can come
> later)
>
>
> On another note, is there a way to get Kmail to not verify gpg signatures
> unless I explicitly request it? Something similar to un-ticking 'check
> signatures automaticaly' in Knode.
>
> Thanks for any help
--
I'm lazy like that

gregor herrmann

2006-04-24, 8:06 am

On Sat, 22 Apr 2006 22:11:09 -0500, Edward Langenback wrote:

> I spent some time trying to make heads or tails of the exim4 package that
> comes with Sarge, but While I did actually get it to send an email (once),
> I never figured out how to add users, get it to allow pop3 and smtp
> connections or anything else.

exim is an SMTP server, for POP3/IMAP you need a - well POP3 and/or
IMAP server. From my experience courier is quite easy to configure.

gregor
--
.''`. http://info.comodo.priv.at/ | gpg key ID: 0x00F3CFE4
: :' : infos zur usenet-hierarchie at.*: http://www.usenet.at/
`. `' member of https://www.vibe.at/ | how to reply: http://got.to/quote/
`- NP: Billie Holiday: What a Little Moonlight Can Do

Edward Langenback

2006-04-24, 8:06 am

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gregor herrmann wrote:

> On Sat, 22 Apr 2006 22:11:09 -0500, Edward Langenback wrote:
>
>
> exim is an SMTP server, for POP3/IMAP you need a - well POP3 and/or
> IMAP server. From my experience courier is quite easy to configure.

Ok, I'll buy that, I'll check it out. Though I don't understand why a
mailserver package does not include dealing with both ends of the exchange.

Also, while I can convince exim to send test messages from the command line,
telnet localhost:25 and telnet 127.0.0.1:25 gets error messages

telnet: could not resolve localhost:25/telnet: Name or service not known
telnet: could not resolve 127.0.0.1:25/telnet: Name or service not known

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Bill Marcum

2006-04-24, 8:06 am

On Sun, 23 Apr 2006 18:45:08 -0500, Edward Langenback
<none@none.com> wrote:
>
> gregor herrmann wrote:
>
>
> Ok, I'll buy that, I'll check it out. Though I don't understand why a
> mailserver package does not include dealing with both ends of the exchange.
>
> Also, while I can convince exim to send test messages from the command line,
> telnet localhost:25 and telnet 127.0.0.1:25 gets error messages
>
> telnet: could not resolve localhost:25/telnet: Name or service not known
> telnet: could not resolve 127.0.0.1:25/telnet: Name or service not known
>
Try a space instead of a colon: telnet localhost 25

--
Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.
-- Daniel J. Boorstin

Edward Langenback

2006-04-24, 8:06 am

Bill Marcum wrote:

> On Sun, 23 Apr 2006 18:45:08 -0500, Edward Langenback
> <none@none.com> wrote:
> Try a space instead of a colon: telnet localhost 25

Thanks! Thats one of those 'little' differences that never occurred to me.
I've been using the colon between address and port for so long it never
occurred to me it might be done differently.

In the meantime, It looks like I'm getting someplace. I just need get it to
stop referring to itself as 'localhost.localdomain' and use a dyndns domain
instead. meanwhile I'm back to the drawing board with a bit more of a
clue.

Thanks

Edward Langenback

2006-04-27, 6:54 am

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Jimchip wrote:

snip

> I read below, too, and I just have a little paasing experience with qmail.
> I have to say that what you're going through with qmail is a lot harder
> than what I think is a similarly robust system provided by exim4. The 4.5x
> Sarg is pretty easy to get going, even though it doesn't seem that way if
> you *ugh* look at the config file.
>
> Here's a few tips if you want to give Exim4 another try:
> 1)You need to use fetchmail and it has a configurator which, though
> slightly obscure, let's you pop as many accounts from various servers,
> etc. as you need.
> 2) Run 'dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config' as root in order to 'tweak' the
> config file once you know what you want. (It was hard for me to answer all
> the questions right initially because I wasn't sure what I wanted)
>
> Anyway, I thought I'd mention a few things since what you wrote below
> would make me give up on qmail.

Thanks for replying. I'll keep fetchmail in mind because there are a few
accounts that I eventually want to combine and deliver to one on the mail
server when it's going.

As for #2... I know exactly what I want... I just haven't yet learned
enough linux to get it done

I've a dyndns domain and I found a linux version of a program to keep dyndns
updated (ddclient.tar.gz) with my current IP address.

The mail server needs to accept incoming smtp on port 25 (preferably with
TLS on ports 465,587 and 2525 as a option for those clients that are
capable of it) and pop3 on ports 110,995 and 1110(also with TLS option). I
need a modest amount of filtering and anti-spam (I understand that procmail
can handle the filtering and spamassassin takes care of spam.)

To prevent being an open relay the server must require smtp-auth (which must
be available on both TLS and non-TLS connections.). I would prefer that
smtp auth also be required for connections from localhost to prevent
accidentally using the wrong account. and it needs to be reasonably
painless to add local and non-local email accounts without adding local
system accounts. IMap, and webmail are not needed. a web control panel
available only to localhost would be nice, but not needed.

Until windows started defecating all over it, I had a setup very much like
this in Mercury32 v4.01a (patched to 4.01b) and it worked great for over a
year, able to process all of my email, plus about two dozen other accounts.

The problem is that I'm new enough to the whole linux thing that I can't
seem to speak what exim4 and it's companion packages expect. I'm not
afraid to learn (or I'd never have left windows) and I've spent a lot of
google time on this trying to learn how to get this done.

What's really starting to fry my bacon is the difficulty I'm having trying
to find helpful clues that don't assume that I already know what I'm doing.
In windows I *DO* know what I'm doing, but this isn't windows and since my
computer hasn't been able to connect to the net under windows despite
re-installing from scratch twice I figure that when it comes to being
online, I'm done with windows...

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Jimchip

2006-04-27, 6:54 am

On 2006-04-26, Edward Langenback <none@none.com> wrote:
>
> Jimchip wrote:
[snip]
> Thanks for replying. I'll keep fetchmail in mind because there are a few
> accounts that I eventually want to combine and deliver to one on the mail
> server when it's going.
>
> As for #2... I know exactly what I want... I just haven't yet learned
> enough linux to get it done
>
> I've a dyndns domain and I found a linux version of a program to keep dyndns
> updated (ddclient.tar.gz) with my current IP address.
>
> The mail server needs to accept incoming smtp on port 25 (preferably with
> TLS on ports 465,587 and 2525 as a option for those clients that are
> capable of it) and pop3 on ports 110,995 and 1110(also with TLS option). I
> need a modest amount of filtering and anti-spam (I understand that procmail
> can handle the filtering and spamassassin takes care of spam.)
>
> To prevent being an open relay the server must require smtp-auth (which must
> be available on both TLS and non-TLS connections.). I would prefer that
> smtp auth also be required for connections from localhost to prevent
> accidentally using the wrong account. and it needs to be reasonably
> painless to add local and non-local email accounts without adding local
> system accounts. IMap, and webmail are not needed. a web control panel
> available only to localhost would be nice, but not needed.

Now that you say that, exim4 smtp-auth isn't straight forward at all. There
was a recent debian list request to make it more so. If qmail works Ok for
you then that's great but now I' think that you want to look at Postfix.
(just a suggestion)

> Until windows started defecating all over it, I had a setup very much like
> this in Mercury32 v4.01a (patched to 4.01b) and it worked great for over a
> year, able to process all of my email, plus about two dozen other accounts.

I remember Mercury. There were a lot of Mercury servers 'out there'.

> The problem is that I'm new enough to the whole linux thing that I can't
> seem to speak what exim4 and it's companion packages expect. I'm not
> afraid to learn (or I'd never have left windows) and I've spent a lot of
> google time on this trying to learn how to get this done.

Given that you have the specs of what you want I think Postfix might deserve
a look. It has the one config file--I think /etc/postfix/main.cf and it's
not nearly as cryptic as exim. I'm sure more direct than what I imagine is
going on with your qmail. I'm going to switch to postfix once I have some
time...Like I said before the default exim4 worked fine for me but I don't
have your special needs. I think smtp-auth is important.

http://www.postfix.org/documentation.html
http://www.muine.org/~hoang/postfix.html#config
http://www.advosys.ca/papers/postfix-filtering.html

>
> What's really starting to fry my bacon is the difficulty I'm having trying
> to find helpful clues that don't assume that I already know what I'm doing.
> In windows I *DO* know what I'm doing, but this isn't windows and since my
> computer hasn't been able to connect to the net under windows despite
> re-installing from scratch twice I figure that when it comes to being
> online, I'm done with windows...

--
Once it's all set up, it just has to be monitored.

Piotr P. Karwasz

2006-05-11, 7:12 pm

On 2006-04-23, Edward Langenback <none@none.com> wrote:
> Ok, I'll buy that, I'll check it out. Though I don't understand why a
> mailserver package does not include dealing with both ends of the exchange.

Because under UNIX you usually read your mail on the local machine (and you
login either locally through your keyboard or remotely through ssh). Thus
there is no immediate need to add a POP or IMAP server to the mailserver
package.

Another difference between Windows and UNIX is that every UNIX program does
only a limited task: exim is only a SMTP server that delivers the mail to
files on your machine (/var/spool/mail), whereas uw-imapd e.g. does only
IMAP.

To create e-mail accounts you can use two approaches:

* You use exim and e.g. uw-imapd and ipopd. You give a shell account to
every user, so they will be able to read their e-mail locally or through
IMAP/POP3.

* You use an integrated system such us courier. Your users will be able to
read e-mail only through IMAP/POP3, but you won't have to give everyone
an account on the machine.

Piotr

Edward Langenback

2006-05-11, 7:12 pm

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On Thursday 11 May 2006 01:43 pm, In
<slrne671e7.dcn.piotr$usenet@morgoth.karwasz.org>, piotr$usenet@karwasz.org
wrote:

> On 2006-04-23, Edward Langenback <none@none.com> wrote:

> To create e-mail accounts you can use two approaches:
>
> * You use exim and e.g. uw-imapd and ipopd. You give a shell account to
> every user, so they will be able to read their e-mail locally or through
> IMAP/POP3.
>
> * You use an integrated system such us courier. Your users will be able to
> read e-mail only through IMAP/POP3, but you won't have to give everyone
> an account on the machine.

Thanks! this is just the clue I've been needing. I'll get to reading the
courier docs and see what I can do.

- --
http://blog.peculiarplace.com
http://lurasbookcase.com
http://peculiarplace.com

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