Qmail on home network. Pre-install questions.

[OhSh33t]

Hello,

I have 4 linux pc's each using Kmail, and 7 Windows pc's that use Outlook Express.

Right now they all have separate SMTP/POP3 user accounts with Comcast ISP for mail.

POP3 Encryption and Athentication settings:

Encryption= NONE (can use TLS) but is NONE right now.
Athentication= PLAIN

All clients point to one of the Gentoo linux servers for thier Gateway which acts as the Firewall as well. This server also has DJBDNS installed and is used as a Caching DNS server as well as a Name Server for internal domain structure only.

I'm not new to networking or firewalling but am new to MTA, MDA server setups. This is where I was hoping someone could chime in and give me thier thoughts. I want to try and make this as simple as possible. Please let me know if this sounds correct or not so I can research further.

1`) I don't have public MX or DNS records so this Qmail MTA will not Receive any emails directly from the general public, It should only send emails from my local lan and forward them to the SMTP server at Comcast. That being said,

2) I would like to pull mail from the various SMTP/POP3 user accounts on the Comcast servers. I suspect this is what "fetchmail" is used for?

3) Qmails qmial-POP3D serves up the mail to the lan clients?

This is all that I'm trying to do. NO more NO less.

I've emerged Qmail and see the following:

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* To setup qmail to run out-of-the-box on your system, run:
 * ebuild /var/db/pkg/net-mail/qmail-1.03-r13/qmail-1.03-r13.ebuild config

OK so what is the above going to do..?? I don't really see an explanation anywhere of what this is going to do?

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 * To start qmail at boot you have to add svscan to your startup
 * and create the following links:
 * ln -s /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-send /service/qmail-send
 * ln -s /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd /service/qmail-smtpd

OK. I know what I need to do here I think:
#rc-update add svscan default
.... and then add the links as said? I'm pretty sure that "qmail-send" and "qmail-smtp" pertains to my setup. Not 100% sure..

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 * To start the pop3 server as well, create the following link:
 * ln -s /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-pop3d /service/qmail-pop3d

OK thats easy enough.

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 * Additionally, the QMTP and QMQP protocols are supported,
 * and can be started as:
 * ln -s /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-qmtpd /service/qmail-qmtpd
 * ln -s /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-qmqpd /service/qmail-qmqpd

Need to research these two. At first glance it doesn't appear that I need these but I'm unsure.

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 * Additionally, if you wish to run qmail right now, you should
 * run this before anything else:
 * source /etc/profile

This seems way to easy.. Scarry.


So with the setup that I've described above I will only need Fetchmail and Qmail + qmail-pop3d ?

That sounds way to easy. I'm assuming that the line:

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* To setup qmail to run out-of-the-box on your system, run:
 * ebuild /var/db/pkg/net-mail/qmail-1.03-r13/qmail-1.03-r13.ebuild config

..... does allot more than I think it does.. I see this documented briefly but no mention of what it is actually doing.. I'm assuming this is the meat and potatoes of the setup for the most part??

Please correct me where I'm wrong so that I can do what research needs to be done to accomplish what I'm trying to do. Thankyou very much..

Mean while im browsing over http://www.lifewithqmail.org/lwq.html

[syn_ack]

I'm thinking of doing the same thing. I was going to use Exim but I figured as long as I'm at it I might as well learn what I can with Qmail. I have pretty much the same setup. Good luck.

I will follow this thread.

[syn_ack]

Sweet..

I've found two very usefull resources in conjunction to reading Life with qmail that are very benifical in MY research.

This guide 1) Here, and 2) Here

Or 1) http://www.skunkworx.org/guides/QmailOnGentoo.txt and, 2) http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/guide-to-mutt.xml

The very nice thing about (1) is the fact that it follows "LWQ" but from a Gentoo Install standpoint. I wish I would've had something like that when I was configuring DJBDNS.

This is going to make things allot smoother than I anticipated..

HTH's