Re: installing Qmail on RedHat 9

[Rick Stevens <rstevens vitalstream com>]

John Moracho wrote:
> Does anyone reccomend installing Qmail on RedHat 9.0 or is anyone 
> against it as of today? 2/24/04.
>
> I'm setting up a mail server for a local neighborhood web portal and am 
> looking into variants of sendmail.  I was using sendmail and running 
> into problems.  Now I am looking for a good or better alternative 
> without the worries of any licensing fees.

Qmail is fine, as is postfix.  I don't use either (not flexible enough
for me), but for 95% of the world, they're fine.

> I would like to enable a web interface to allow users to access their 
> mailboxes through most web browsers, I'm looking at squirrelmail right 
> now.  Does anyone know how well Squirrel mail works with Qmail?

Works fine.  Remember that squirrelmail is simply a web interface to
an IMAP server and uses sendmail to send mail.  Qmail provides a
sendmail replacement.

You must have three prerequisites set up for squirrelmail to work: a
web server (apache) for squirrelmail to run on, an MTA (e.g. sendmail
or Qmail's replacement) to send outgoing mail, and an IMAP server for
squirrelmail to pick up the mail from.

You can run all three pieces on the same box.  You have to configure
sendmail to accept mail from the outside world to receive incoming mail.
IMAP doesn't have to be available to the outside world, but it MUST be
accessible over the localhost (lo0, 127.0.0.1) interface and you must
configure squirrelmail to talk IMAP with the localhost.

> I am new to Redhat or any varients of Unix, I have a good backround in 
> network engineering, and am familiar with most mail exchange 
> terminology.  I have been building and supporting MS Exchange servers 
> for the last 3 years and do not want to pay a licence fee for the 
> product.  Any help in this matter woould be appreciated.

It's not a difficult thing to do.  Configure and install Qmail and make
sure it's working.  Configure and install apache if you haven't already
done so (you can install Red Hat's apache RPMs to set up apache 2.x).
Configure and install IMAP (it's probably already installed, just enable
it).  Configure and install squirrelmail to run on your apache setup.
Make sure your firewall permits incoming access on ports 25 and 80 (for
SMTP and web access, respectively) and away you go.

If you need more help, let us know.

BTW, take a look at the stuff such as IMP, Kronolith, Turba and the like
from http://www.horde.org.  Just those three give you webmail, full-tilt
calendar and contact manager.  There are a number of other, useful
tools available under the Horde system.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens vitalstream com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-         C program run. C program crash. C programmer quit.         -
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