RH9 and Sendmail

[Ingonuts]

Hey Guys,

It's my first time posting here, so please be gentle.

I am trying to configure a mail server on my current linux box running RH9. It is connected via router to a static DSL line and currently runs my domain and forums. I have read, read, and re-read all kinds of articles and googled over and over but cannot get anything working as far as sendmail is concerend.

Can anyone direct me to a good online how-to or are there any utils available to easily configure/install/maintain this program. I am a fairly new linux user but have battled over the last 3-4 months with setting up a php forum, gameserver and all types of other services. It' this one last thing that has got me in a bind, as I would really like to start getting mail going on my own domain.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Ingo

[fredg]

Consider switching to Postfix. It's far easier to configure, and was most likely installed alongside Sendmail. There should be a mail switch tool somewhere in your menus.

[Ingonuts]

LOL,

Nice Fred, way to complicate things even more. Postfix was not installed alongside, I checked before posting this.

I was also told that sendmail is much better than postfix. Truth be told I don't care what the F&*k I use, I just want something I can actually get to work and maintain.

[bwkaz]

If you're really teed off at sendmail, ditch it and use something else. :p I use exim, and like it fairly well -- especially the fact that it can do Maildir-type mailboxes, though you'll need a Maildir-capable POP3 server to be able to get your mail; I use solid-pop3d myself -- but other people have recommended qmail before.

Neither exim nor qmail (at least, I don't think qmail does) uses m4 to parse their config files. They just read them in like anything else would. I think that sendmail does, and if that's true, then that could explain a lot of your frustration with it.

But maybe somebody in networking would have suggestions for stuff to do with sendmail to make it easier. In any case, this is a much better question for networking than it is for here (this forum is "how I did it", not "how do I do it?", despite the description text ;)). Moving there...

Though it might help to have a description of what's not working, too -- "it doesn't work" is a bit vague. ;) Does it not start up? Is it complaining about syntax issues with the config file? Can you just not figure out how to do something you need to do using the config file(s)?

[Ingonuts]

Thanks Mr. Moderator,

Sorry for posting in the wrong forum. I just really need some help. You got any links on how to set-up the alternative options you suggested?

[kerke]

I documented what I had to do to get my RHL 9 sendmail and pop3 up and running (see attached).

Hope that helps.

J. Padron
---

[Ingonuts]

Thanks,

Looks like what I need, I will try it tonight and let you know how it works out for me.

[fredg]

You were "told" Sendmail is much better than Postfix? Well, I dumped Sendmail for Postfix years ago. And I ran Sendmail for years, and I 'd never go back.

You just want something you can get to work and maintain? Sounds like Postfix to me, especially on the maintaining part.

No idea what you did when you installed your RH 9. If you take a basic server install, you get Sendmail and Postfix and the mail switch tool. You can go back and forth at will, but Sendmail is running by default (but probably won't take mail from the network without changes). But if you did manual package selection, you probably missed some of that stuff.

Sendmail can be made to work, zillions of people still use it. You'll get it going. But Postfix would be a lot easier, easier now, and later.

And as others have suggested, there are other choices as well.

[Ingonuts]

Ya Fred,

I actually manually selected the packages to install b/c there were issues with php and sql that I was trying to avoid. Do you have something similar to what was posted above as a how-to for Postfix? As I said, this is the first time I will be setting up a mail server, so ANY advice is appreciated. Many good points from everyone so far, so keep it coming. I am willing to try just about anything at this point.

[fredg]

Postfix will work out of the box for the local machine. The /etc/postfix/main.cf configuration file is well commented and therfore more or less human readable. You can make sense of it and minimal changes, if any are all that are needed. You might just have to tell it your domain name in config parameter 'mydestination'

Simon Mudd does a great job with his postfix packages. They are always current, whereas what Red Hat puts out are not. You may as well use his. Visit his site here:

http://postfix.wl0.org/en/

Something else you might want to look at is Webmin:

http://www.webmin.com/

GUI web browser manager for just about anything you would ever have to do an *nix box. The Postfix module is excellent! There's a Sendmail module too, but I deleted it ;-)

Webmin just rocks.

The Postfix site is here:

http://www.postfix.org/

They have a Docs section for configuring it at various levels.

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by Ingonuts
Sorry for posting in the wrong forum. I just really need some help. Hey, no big deal. :)

You got any links on how to set-up the alternative options you suggested? Err... well... hmm. I suppose Webmin (as was mentioned by fredg) might work, though I don't know for sure. I actually used the comments in the default config file myself, though I'm not sure I'd recommend that. I suppose you could check them out (if you don't want to just install postfix... ;)) if you want, but you'll need to get the package installed first. Whatever.

There are also a couple of hints at http://hints.linuxfromscratch.org regarding exim. Most of the time, those hints are just for getting it up and running, but this one has some tips on configuration too. Check section 7:

http://lfs.learnbyexample.com/hints/files/exim.txt

I don't really know much about qmail at all...

[fredg]

The "Red Hat Alternatives" thing for mail is a gimmik that lets one switch between Sendmail and Postix with a click or two. It actually works too.

Unfortunately, it may be one of those things that, if it didn't come in with a default install, it might be a nightmare to install later. Shoot, I don't even know the package name for it, let alone all the dependencies it's likely to have beyond Postfix and Sendmail.

I wouldn 't even try to get that on myself if it's not already there. Maybe it's easy and someone can point the way, if so, go for it, but all it does is switch between Postfix and Sendmail, it doesn't configure either of them for you. And once you settle on either Postfix or Sendmail, you aren't going to be switching between them anyway, so what's the point?