Linux Home Mail Server

[Greenbandit]

I want to set up a home mail server that downloads emails from my ISP (presumably using POP3?) then sorts them into two groups based on the email address. This would then allow two separate home PCs on the home network, each with their own copy of Thunderbird to access each person's emails (this way I won't get kicked off my games PC every time my other half wants to read her emails)
Can anyone recommend a suitable mail server program (Linux preferred to avoid licensing issues) to use on the email downloading PC?

[richy19]

i don see why you want to do this?
why dont you just set up thunderbird to get your emails on a nother computer that way she can use her own computer?

[b0redom]

Postfix and Dovecot will do what you want.

[Jay]

Postfix and Dovecot will do what you want.

thats what i did with squirrelmail front end on CentOS

[watercooled]

You could also just leave messages on the server so they could be downloaded by both computers unless you want to set up your own server.

[Jay]

Yes you could do that but dovecot is an IMAP server so there is no need to leave messages on the ISP POP server if you go that way.

[ChaosSystem]

Use an email supplier that supports the IMAP protocol (like gmail). This would leave the email on the server and allow the clients to "sync" the emails to the computers.

If you want to setup your own server, try something like SME Server.

[peterb]

Yes you could do that but dovecot is an IMAP server so there is no need to leave messages on the ISP POP server if you go that way.

Dovecot is also a POP3 server.

Postfix is a mail transfer agent, so it won't get mail from a POP3 server - however if your ISP will relay your mail to your IP address (ideally static, then that would work. Otherwise you will need to use something like fetchmail to d0ownload the mail from the pop3 server accounts, and then use dovecot (or similar to provide those to the uisers).

I haven't looked closely at fetchmail - if it will leave mail in the appropriate directories for dovecot to find, that will work, but you may need to inject the mail downloaded into postfix for it to deliver to the dovecot directories. You may want to use a virtual host arrangement to avoid giving mail users their own shell accounts on the linux server.

You could dispense with your ISP mailbox altogether and just get them to set the DNS mx record to point to your (static) IP address (I do that with some mail addresses) in which case you would only need postfix and dovecot (which is what I use).

However - you will get spam, so you will need some spam filtering (spamassasin marks spam for user deletion) and you may want to include some source AV checking. You also need to be careful in configuring postfix to ensure that you don't accidentally leave it as an open relay. (I did once - by mistake, for 36hours. During that time my server transmitted in excess of 30,000 spam e amils - relayed via my ISP. Fortunately I spotteed it, and sent a grovelling e mail before they spotted it and denied access to their SMTP server. A salutory lesson )

Useful links

www.postfix.org

www.dovecot.org

www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/mail-fetchmail.html

http://fetchmail.berlios.de

(Looking at that last link, fetchmail may do all that you require without dovecot or postfix - but you will need to read the documentation carefully)

If you do go the postfix route, I strongly suggest that you get the O'reilly book - "Postfix - The Definitive Guide" by kyle Dent. Lots of useful information on configuration and anti-spam measures.

[Greenbandit]

Wow peoples, thanks, this is information overload

I think I'll try the fetchmail to d/l my emails as (if I read peterb correctly) this will work with my ISP's POP3 server without changing its settings, then I'll set up my 2 copies of thunderbird to connect to dovecote.

I think I might be attempting too much here but it seemed good idea when I though it.

[arbitrabbit]

Wow peoples, thanks, this is information overload

I think I'll try the fetchmail to d/l my emails as (if I read peterb correctly) this will work with my ISP's POP3 server without changing its settings, then I'll set up my 2 copies of thunderbird to connect to dovecote.

I think I might be attempting too much here but it seemed good idea when I though it.

Well, given that you haven't explained why you need to do it, that is probably best for what you want. However, given that most ISPs support IMAP and as one of the posters mentioned, it would be easier to setup thunderbird on both the client PCs...if you want to sort email, you can do it on your ISP server (I do it by creating a rule which puts emails in two seperate folders) and then using IMAP, you can subscribe the two PCs to two different folders. It would be easier (and cheaper) than setting up your own server.

[oolon]

Fetchmail can pop messages then use an MTA like exim or sendmail to redelivery on another machine. squirelmail is a nice web front end, i would used cyrus for imap and pop. Cyrus supports sieve macros for processing email which can be great for vacations, multiple mailboxes etc, I would also suggest avelsieve.

[peterb]

Fetchmail can pop messages then use an MTA like exim or sendmail to redelivery on another machine. squirelmail is a nice web front end, i would used cyrus for imap and pop. Cyrus supports sieve macros for processing email which can be great for vacations, multiple mailboxes etc, I would also suggest avelsieve.

Yes, but I think fethmail also has a pop3/Imap server, so unless you need to send mail on., I'm reasonably certain that is all you neede - but the documentation (on the link) will tell you. I have only played very briefly with fetchmail (do so something similar to the OP) but never pursued it fully.

[oolon]

Yes, but I think fethmail also has a pop3/Imap server, so unless you need to send mail on., I'm reasonably certain that is all you neede - but the documentation (on the link) will tell you. I have only played very briefly with fetchmail (do so something similar to the OP) but never pursued it fully.

The question is will that fetchmail just feed into a single account imap account on the local imap server... I think it will, going via a local mta will make sure the mails are reprocessed and split into multiple users most imap server are quite "dumb" when it comes to users, and needs things sorted out by aliases for multiple drops to a single box. Use of a posting MTA might also be considered rather than just the ISPs one.

[Greenbandit]

Well, given that you haven't explained why you need to do it,

Maybe the term "mail server" is the wrong one.

Currently me & my girl have:-
- 1 email A/C with my ISP (Plusnet/Force9) that has unlimited aliases,
- 1 PC running thunderbird that gets the emails and (using a simple mail filter) sorts them into 2 separate inboxes.
- it is not possible to get a 2nd PC running its own thunderbird to logon to the Force9 POP3 server to get her emails as we only have a single identity & logon as far as the server is concerned,
- I want to let a 2nd PC get its own emails so I don't get kicked off my games PC when she wants to read her emails.

So what I wanted was:-
- Use a spare Athlon 3000+ 2GB PC to D/L the emails from the ISP POP3 server (this avoids the need to reconfigure the ISP mailbox thus keeping the existing backup plans of Webmail and a single PC to read all emails if my local "server" falls over)
- Set up the spare PC to act as a POP3 local server to be accessed only by two other PCs using thunderbird on my LAN to get their own emails.
- The LAN is behind a NAT router so should be secure enough for my needs.
- VOILA - no more game interruptions.

I have just reformatted the spare PC & re-installed Ubuntu 9.10 :-) - next I'll try the other stuff :-(

[peterb]

The question is will that fetchmail just feed into a single account imap account on the local imap server... I think it will, going via a local mta will make sure the mails are reprocessed and split into multiple users most imap server are quite "dumb" when it comes to users, and needs things sorted out by aliases for multiple drops to a single box. Use of a posting MTA might also be considered rather than just the ISPs one.

It may do - I must have another play with it sometime (adds to the bottom of a long list of "things to do when I get a minute" )

Maybe the term "mail server" is the wrong one.<---snip

So what I wanted was:-
- Use a spare Athlon 3000+ 2GB PC to D/L the emails from the ISP POP3 server (this avoids the need to reconfigure the ISP mailbox thus keeping the existing backup plans of Webmail and a single PC to read all emails if my local "server" falls over)
- Set up the spare PC to act as a POP3 local server to be accessed only by two other PCs using thunderbird on my LAN to get their own emails.
- The LAN is behind a NAT router so should be secure enough for my needs.
- VOILA - no more game interruptions.

I have just reformatted the spare PC & re-installed Ubuntu 9.10 :-) - next I'll try the other stuff :-(

But given the above info, Fetchmail could dump the mail into one account and the two PCS could access it - there is no privacy of course - each can see the others mail , but if you are OK with that, no problem.

Otherwise, how much would plusnet charge for a second POP3 mail address? (not as interesting though )

[arbitrabbit]

Maybe the term "mail server" is the wrong one.

Currently me & my girl have:-
- 1 email A/C with my ISP (Plusnet/Force9) that has unlimited aliases,
- 1 PC running thunderbird that gets the emails and (using a simple mail filter) sorts them into 2 separate inboxes.
- it is not possible to get a 2nd PC running its own thunderbird to logon to the Force9 POP3 server to get her emails as we only have a single identity & logon as far as the server is concerned,
- I want to let a 2nd PC get its own emails so I don't get kicked off my games PC when she wants to read her emails.
:-(

Don't know about Plusnet, but I have a very similar setup with 5 aliases. The easiest way to do is to create a server side rule where you use say the To field of the email to move messages to individual folders. Then you can have Thunderbird installed on two different computers which would connect to the mail server over IMAP and fetch their individual folders. If you have any issues with simultaneous logins, all you need to do is to configure the two thunderbird clients such that the two connect say a minute after each other (i.e. if the first computer sync at 10:00 and then every 5 minutes, make sure the second one connects at say 10:02 and then every 5 minutes after that)