[vox-tech] mail server config question

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Cylar Z (cylarz at yahoo.com):

> I'm not talking about a pop/smtp client like Outlook or Squirrelmail
> (which I am guessing is Outlook's Linux counterpart).

Actually, it's not.  SquirrelMail is a Web front-end to an IMAP daemon
(which you must also furnish).  More about that below.

> I'm able to send mail to, and receive mail from, other email addresses
> outside the system - configuring the MTA was a snap. (I didn't even
> have to open a port for it in my firewall.) Currently however, I am
> only able to send or receive mail by using the "mail" command at the
> prompt.  

The primitive "mail" console program is the simplest example of an MUA,
by the way.

My personal preference, which most people don't share:  By preference, my
mail never leaves my MTA box.  Instead, I SSH to that box and read using
my favourite console-type MUA, "mutt".  To ensure that "mutt" remains
exactly the way I left it, I run it under GNU screen.

> I'm wondering - is there some sort of "yahoo-like" web interface I
> could install on my system? [...] If possible, I'd prefer to avoid
> setting up the POP3/SMTP functionality this would require, mostly
> because I've looked at the documentation for Postfix and can't see a
> way to do that without leaving an "open relay" that spammers could
> exploit.

1.  Yes, there's an entire category of Yahoo-like Web front-end programs
to reach your mail.  SquirrelMail is one.  More at:  "Webmail" on
http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Mail/ .

2.  I think you're suffering a bit of category confusion.  While it's
true that (to my knowledge) all existing webmail programs for Linux
expect to speak to a POP3 or IMAP daemon rather than reading a raw local
mail spool via the filesystem, that has nothing to do with Postfix.
Postfix is an MTA -- an SMTP daemon.  You would need a separate piece of
software -- a Mail Delivery Agent -- to offer up the IMAP or POP3
services a webmail program expects to talk to, to pull down inbound
mail.  Yes, outbound mail would have to be handed off from the webmail
program to Postfix (your MTA), but that would be done locally, exactly
the same way /usr/bin/mail does.

Your concern for security is commendable, anyway.  Let's talk about
that:  You might, for example, pick an IMAP daemon like Dovecot, _but_
configure it to be reachable from the loopback network interface only,
_not_ from anywhere else.  You would then configure a webmail program
such as SquirrelMail to poll its incoming mail from host "localhost",
rather than from the public hostname.


> I realize I'm probably talking about something called
> an MUA (the other half of the email delivery equation)...

/usr/bin/mail is an example of an MUA.
/usr/sbin/postfix is an example of an MTA.
/usr/sbin/dovecot is an example of an MDA.

You'll find more about this in other documents on
http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Mail/ .  I hope that helps.

-- 
Cheers,
Rick Moen                      "vi is my shepherd; I shall not font."
rick at linuxmafia.com                               -- Psalm 0.1 beta