Topic: sme as email server on fake domain

[glc]

I don't wan't to use a registered domain with SME; I just want to use SME as a LAN file/email server.  

As the email server, I want it to download my email from my various email accounts and store it until I fetch it via Outlook Express from my desktop machine.  That way my desktop machine isn't downloading email from the interenet.  Plus, I want SME to maintain the email until I delete it from Outlook Express and I don't want any of this email sent to the email aliases/pseudonyms created by SME.  I also want SME to handle outgoing email.  How do I do this?

TIA>

[Geoff Bennion]

Without altering the templates in SME, it can only collect mail from one
account.

Outgoing mail - SME will do as is.

check out the boards for Multi Fetch - this is what you will need.

[Kelvin]

Hi,

My apologies if the following does not fully cover what you need.

>As the email server, I want it to download my email from my various email accounts and store it until I fetch it via Outlook Express from my desktop machine.

I use a user contributed rpm by Vincent Filali (www.chez.com/vinc28/fetchmail.html) to connect to and download my POP3 mail from my various accounts and ISPs. Vincent's program lets you specify a number of POP3/IMAP accounts to collect mail from for each account.

> Plus, I want SME to maintain the email until I delete it from Outlook Express

I believe this is achieved when you use IMAP mode instead of POP3 to connect to and collect mail from SME

> and I don't want any of this email sent to the email aliases/pseudonyms created by SME.

I could be wrong but I think those aliases are just that, alises, not actual accounts or mailboxes. By using the contributed rpm I listed above, you actually specify which e-mail accounts to collect for each actual account you setup on your SME. You couldn't really send e-mail to the aliases from an external source if you are not using a proper domain name and if your ISP / mail host is not forwarding mail to your server or arranged for a multidrop mailbox for you. However, I think you could send mail to those aliases locally, ie. joe@localdomain.com, joe.bloggs@localdomain.com and joe_bloggs@localdomain.com are all valid locally.

> I also want SME to handle outgoing email. How do I do this?

Just set Outlook Express' SMTP server to your SME

Hope this helps !

Kelvin

[glc]

I installed fetchmail, but I can't seem to get it to retreive my email.  What version are you running, how do you have it setup and are you using a real world domain?

http://host_name/server-manager:

E-mail retrieval (as specified by the fetchmail site)
     E-mail retrieval mode:  Multi-drop
     Delegate mail server:  left blank
     Secondary mail server:  fetchmail site doesn't say what to use, if anything (I have it blank and SME filled in mail.myisp.xxx)
     POP user account (for multi-drop):  anything
     POP user password (for multi-drop):  anything
     Check intervals:  whatever you want

Fetchmail Users (Multi Drop System)
     Enable E-smith MultiDrop (override following):  yes
     Do you want to use MultiDrop System:  no (I select yes, SME reverts to no)
     Server Name for Multidrop:  my ISP's mail server
     Account User for Multidrop:  the SME account that I created for myself
     Password for Multidrop:  the password for the above account
     Enveloppe delimiter:  left blank
(Modify user fetchmail account : )
     Do you want to debug this account:  no
     Spy this account via admin account ?:  no
     What action to do with the mails on server(s):  Only Read & keep mail on server  --  ISP's mail server or SME's mail server???
     What action with the mails to forward:  Get mails only
     Account name to forward (xxx@yyy.zzz):  left blank
(Modify user fetchmail account : Mails boxs)
     Mail server: ISP's or SME's (I assume my ISP)
     Server type:  shouldn't matter, correct???
     Account name on server:  I assume my ISP email account
     Password on server:  I assume my ISP email password

Thanks in advance...

[glc]

oh, and is there any way to clear the email log?  I got quite a log from all the testing.

[Kelvin]

Hi again,

I need to confirm with you the following points :-

1. Do you have and are you using a "real" domain as well as the "fake" domain
2. If yes to (1) above, have you got multidrop (sometimes called domain pop) arrangements with your ISP / Mail host ?

Kelvin

[glc]

No real domain and no virtual domains.  The "fake" main domain that I entered during setup was lan.xxx

Just to reiterate to ensure we are on the same page:
I want to use SME as a LAN only file server and as a email server handling outgoing and incomming email for my ISP email accounts so Outlook Epress is set to check for email and to send email through SME.

Thanks for all the help and quick responses.

[Kelvin]

Righto !

Assuming I understood you right. Here's what I think your settings should be.

http://host_name/server-manager:

E-mail retrieval (as specified by the fetchmail site)
E-mail retrieval mode: Multi-drop
Delegate mail server: left blank
Secondary mail server: fetchmail site doesn't say what to use, if anything (I have it blank and SME filled in mail.myisp.xxx)
POP user account (for multi-drop): anything
POP user password (for multi-drop): anything
Check intervals: whatever you want

Fetchmail Users (Multi Drop System)
Enable E-smith MultiDrop (override following): NO
Do you want to use MultiDrop System: NO
Server Name for Multidrop: Not Applicable
Account User for Multidrop: Not Applicable
Password for Multidrop: Not Applicable
Enveloppe delimiter: left blank
(Modify user fetchmail account : )
Do you want to debug this account: no
Spy this account via admin account ?: no
What action to do with the mails on server(s): Read and flush all  --- This means collect and clear mails from your ISP's mail server
What action with the mails to forward: Get mails only
Account name to forward (xxx@yyy.zzz): left blank
(Modify user fetchmail account : Mails boxs)

Mail server: ISP's mail server
Server type: pop server ---- Most ISP's are setup as POP servers
Account name on server: I assume my ISP email account
Password on server: I assume my ISP email password

Then repeat the last 4 for as many Pop accounts as THIS user has.

Repeat for each user your created on your server that has mail to be collected from the internet.

Don't worry about maillog. It gets rotated automatically. To just view the last few lines, use --- tailf maillog.

Kelvin

[glc]

> Secondary mail server: fetchmail site doesn't say what to
> use, if anything (I have it blank and SME filled in
> mail.myisp.xxx)
So what should I key in here?  Anything?


> What action to do with the mails on server(s): Read and flush
> all  --- This means collect and clear mails from your ISP's
> mail server
OK.  Will this LEAVE the emails on SME until deleted from Outlook Express?


> Account name on server: I assume my ISP email account
> Password on server: I assume my ISP email password
OK.  So I take it I should use my ISP pass/user?\


Now for Outlook Express.  The out/in servers should be the IP or host name of my SME server, correct?  What about the user account and passwords?


And finally (I hope:)), Hostnames and addresses from http://host_name/server-manager-- should I do anything with the automatically created hostname mail.lan.xxx (or any of the others for that matter)?

[Kelvin]

Hi,

>So what should I key in here? Anything?
Nothing. Not Applicable to you.

>OK. Will this LEAVE the emails on SME until deleted from Outlook Express?
This collects mail from you ISP. What happens once it's in SME depends on your Outlook Express setup. I can't actually remember if Outlook Express supports IMAP or not (I don't like or use Outlook anything ). If you want your e-mails to remain on the server until deleted by you, you must use an e-mail client capable of IMAP access. POP3 clients normally clear mails once collected (although most clients, OE included, can be set to LEAVE a copy of the mail on the server after collection BUT will NOT clear the mail even if it was deleted on the workstation).

> OK. So I take it I should use my ISP pass/user?
Correct.

>Now for Outlook Express. The out/in servers should be the IP or host name of my SME server, correct? What about the user account and passwords?
Incoming / Outgoing servers : IP address or hostname of SME
User account : The account you set up in SME
Password : password for the above account you setup on SME

>And finally (I hope:)), Hostnames and addresses from http://host_name/server-
>manager-- should I do anything with the automatically created hostname
>mail.lan.xxx (or any of the others for that matter)?
Provided I have understood you correctly, leave them be.

Let us know how you got on !

Kelvin

[glc]

I keep getting the following email from Cron Daemon subj.: Cron /etc/startmail

fetchmail: couldn't find canonical DNS name of mail.myisp.xxx
all mailserver name lookups failed, exiting

I deleted mail.myisp.xxx, but SME continues to re-insert it.

[Kelvin]

Before I ask you to try anything else, can you e-mail me your /etc/fetchmail file so that I may see what it is trying to do ? If you wish you may make a copy of it first then edit the copy to blank out any passwords that are in there before you e-mail the copy to me.

Kelvin

[Scott Smith]

Kelvin wrote in reply:
> >So what should I key in here? Anything?
> Nothing. Not Applicable to you.

This may not be correct, especially if SME is the outbound SMTP relay. Most mail systems attempt to reverse DNS the sender's domain. Having a fake domain will likely cause problems. If you want to keep the fake domain, the mail client should be pointed to the ISP's SMTP server instead of to the SME server.

Kelvin wrote in reply:
> >OK. Will this LEAVE the emails on SME until deleted from
> > Outlook Express?
> This collects mail from you ISP. What happens once it's in
> SME depends on your Outlook Express setup. I can't actually
> remember if Outlook Express supports IMAP or not (I don't
> like or use Outlook anything ). If you want your e-mails
> to remain on the server until deleted by you, you must use an
> e-mail client capable of IMAP access. POP3 clients normally
> clear mails once collected (although most clients, OE
> included, can be set to LEAVE a copy of the mail on the
> server after collection BUT will NOT clear the mail even if
> it was deleted on the workstation).

OE does have a setting to leave messages on the server. It also allows messages to be deleted from the server when deleted from OE, or to be deleted after X number of days. And it supports IMAP.

Scott

[glc]

Hm, well I'm going to finish testing it latter (I got to get some sleep, it's 4:26am:)).  

Kelvin, I'll email you a copy of /etc/fetchmail if I continue to have the problem.

[Kelvin]

Hi Scott,

>This may not be correct, especially if SME is the outbound SMTP relay. Most
>mail systems attempt to reverse DNS the sender's domain. Having a fake
>domain will likely cause problems. If you want to keep the fake domain, the mail
>client should be pointed to the ISP's SMTP server instead of to the SME server.

As I understand it, the Secondary Mail Server entry if for the name of the ISP Mail server you are attempting to collect mail from and should not be reliant on whether or not you actually have a valid local domain name or not.  Isn't the entry for delegating SMTP mail forwarding on the page called Other e-mail settings under the entry called Internet Provider's SMTP server ?

In glc's case, you are correct that I am mistaken, you CANNOT leave the secondary mail server setting blank if you set SME to Multi-drop. Instead, just enter any one of the pop servers you are trying to collect mail from. And if you find that SME won't send your mails out, configure SME to relay mail to your ISP's SMTP server as mentioned above from the Other e-mail settings page.


Kelvin