Unix Mail Client

[directhex]

I now see why Unix isnt a mainstream end user OS..

All I want to do is send/recieve smtp/pop3 email, I cant even install this Mutt, wants me to compile it or something, how about, download, install, configure, work..

Here's the issue: UNIX covers a huge range of different OSes, on a huge number of different CPUs. Either you get source and build it locally, or you get silly.

As an example, let's talk about STATA. STATA is a popular stats package, used by researchers. It's proprietary, so they can't supply source. They do it for Windows, and for Mac. And for UNIX.

Except it's not for "UNIX". The "UNIX" link actually provides a version for AIX on PowerPC, Linux on i386, Linux on Itanium, Linux on x86-64, Solaris on SPARC64, or Solaris on x86-64. take a peek at their updates download page.

But that's hardly an exhaustive list. You can't run it on Linux/PowerPC. Or Linux/S390. Or Linux/HP-PA. Or HP-UX/HP-PA. or HP-UX/Itanium. Or SCO UNIXware. Or UNICOS/x86-64. Or FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, on any architecture.

Or any I've missed.

But, if you have a source tarball, since all of these are POSIX-compatible UNIXes, you can extract, configure, make, make install, and run - on any of the above.

[peterb]

Theres always the option of getting sendmail to work properly, anyone used or know how to configure that?

The sendmail config files are not easy to edit - they have there own syntax and need a dedicated editor to do anything more than really trivial.

Postfix is a much better alternative (IMHO) and is a direct replacement. Config files are easily edited, and don't require much configuration 'out of the box' to get a working MTA. Add Fetchmail and you can collect from an external pop3 mail box to deliver to postfix. Add something like Dovecot and you have a fully working IMAP/POP3 mail server.

[[GSV]Trig]

Ok, well what I want to do basically is this...

The Sco box needs to send out email to an external address and 2 internal ones, the external emails go fine as is but for some reason when you send to an internal address it says it cant find the domain.

[peterb]

You're sending it to another MTA? You should just need the IP address for the machine you are relaying to. If you want to set up a pop3/impa server for clients within the domain to collect mail from, you will need something like dovecot. Sendmail/postfix will deliver to dovecot - clients pick up from there. If you are using postfix (probably possible with sendmail) you can set up a virtual host so that the clients don't need a shell account on the server box.

[Splash]

Ok, well what I want to do basically is this...

The Sco box needs to send out email to an external address and 2 internal ones, the external emails go fine as is but for some reason when you send to an internal address it says it cant find the domain.

Smells like DNS to me... What does it say if you run

dig mx yourdomain

?

[[GSV]Trig]

Sendmail currently relays through our SMTP server directly but when it does I dont know what its doing exactly as external emails go and internals get bounced back, I dont know if its the Sco box bouncing them or the SMTP server..

[[GSV]Trig]

Smells like DNS to me... What does it say if you run

dig mx yourdomain

?

; <<>> DiG 8.4 <<>> mx bentleybrushware.co.uk
;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
;; got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 20940
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1
;; QUERY SECTION:
;; bentleybrushware.co.uk, type = MX, class = IN

;; ANSWER SECTION:
bentleybrushware.co.uk. 9h47m11s IN MX 5 mailserver.bentleybrushware.co.uk.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
mailserver.bentleybrushware.co.uk. 9h47m11s IN A 213.171.216.1

;; Total query time: 0 msec
;; FROM: stxserv.bentley.local to SERVER: 192.168.100.5
;; WHEN: Thu Jun 17 16:50:55 2010
;; MSG SIZE sent: 40 rcvd: 83

That answer the question?

[peterb]

The mail logs for the sendmail box might give you some more clues. At least you will be able to determined if it is the local box that is doing the rejecytion or the remote one. (The mail headers of the rejected mail should also tell you that too)

[Splash]

and if you run

dig mx bentley.local (which I'm guessing is your internal domain)?

[aidanjt]

Unfortunately mailing in *NIX land is very convoluted, very fragile, and very poorly documented. That's why a lot of people use broken and insecure WebUI's for server configuration.

[[GSV]Trig]

and if you run

dig mx bentley.local (which I'm guessing is your internal domain)?

; <<>> DiG 8.4 <<>> mx bentley.local
;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
;; got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 30101
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUERY SECTION:
;; bentley.local, type = MX, class = IN

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
bentley.local. 1H IN SOA server.bentley.local. hostmaster. (
70408 ; serial
15M ; refresh
10M ; retry
1D ; expiry
1H ) ; minimum


;; Total query time: 0 msec
;; FROM: stxserv.bentley.local to SERVER: 192.168.100.5
;; WHEN: Thu Jun 17 17:41:32 2010
;; MSG SIZE sent: 31 rcvd: 84

That..

[Splash]

So no internal mailserver specified in DNS then? Not saying that it would definitely fix it if there were any, but it might be worth looking into.

As for the relaying aspect I guess that logs on both the SCO box and your mail relay are your friend, without knowing more about your mail infrastructure I'd be hesitant to say much more.

[peterb]

Well a DNS server isn't essential if it is a small network, frwarding to an internal IP address will work or (for a small network) using the hosts file would also work.

But look at the logs, and consider using postfix as a drop in replacement for sendmail.

[[GSV]Trig]

The windows server does DNS.
If its network config then thats good because thats something else that needs sorting out properly, if doesn't connect to the internet usually unless when its booted you do the route add default router ip thing.

[ikonia]

from reading this - I think I see the problem

1.) your sco box relays through your companies mail relay, therefore the DNS lookups are done on that box, not your sco box.

2.) your external mails work well, so that means they are getting to the relay, doing a lookup, finding the host and sending to the host. (all good)

3.) your internal ones are failing, which suggests they are hitting the mail relay, the mail relay is using dns servers that can't see your internal mail domain (either no records or invalid/unroutable MX record) and bouncing it back

3-a.) your mail relay can see your internal dns domains but as it is an "external" box, can't route/get back in to deliver the mail to an internal mail server.

trouble shooting.

get onto the mail relay, do some looksup on your internal domains, check they are valid, then try to reach those machines on port 25.

Solutions. (depending on the output of your trouble shooting above)

a.) configure sco box to not relay for your internal domains
b.) configure your mail relay to use DNS views to it can lookup internal/external hosts correctly.
c.) as suggested cheat the sco box's mail relay by using a host file entry
d.) tell the sco box to send to a specific host, instead of user@yourdomain.com actually tell it the box that wants the mail, users@boxname.yourdomain.com


if you're stuck, give us some more output from the trouble shooting.

[directhex]

from reading this - I think I see the problem

1.) your sco box relays through your companies mail relay, therefore the DNS lookups are done on that box, not your sco box.

2.) your external mails work well, so that means they are getting to the relay, doing a lookup, finding the host and sending to the host. (all good)

3.) your internal ones are failing, which suggests they are hitting the mail relay, the mail relay is using dns servers that can't see your internal mail domain (either no records or invalid/unroutable MX record) and bouncing it back

3-a.) your mail relay can see your internal dns domains but as it is an "external" box, can't route/get back in to deliver the mail to an internal mail server.

trouble shooting.

get onto the mail relay, do some looksup on your internal domains, check they are valid, then try to reach those machines on port 25.

Solutions. (depending on the output of your trouble shooting above)

a.) configure sco box to not relay for your internal domains
b.) configure your mail relay to use DNS views to it can lookup internal/external hosts correctly.
c.) as suggested cheat the sco box's mail relay by using a host file entry
d.) tell the sco box to send to a specific host, instead of user@yourdomain.com actually tell it the box that wants the mail, users@boxname.yourdomain.com


if you're stuck, give us some more output from the trouble shooting.

What doesn't help is Sendmail. Exim4 or Postfix can be managed by humans.