On Sat, 25 Jan 2014 13:09:52 -0600 Garry <gcon...@icloud.com> wrote: > I would like to setup a simple email server and run it out of my > house. I have everything needed in order to do it. In fact I had one > setup successfully about a year ago and crashed it. I can't figure > out how I did it. > > There's only two email addresses I would like to setup. > > I would like to use postfix and dovecot; I don't need MySQL. > > My ISP seems to block port 587; all other ports are open (25, 110, > etc.) > > I have issues wrapping my mind around setting up mx records.
An MX record is a hostname (some servers will accept an IP address, which is incorrect, and many will not) which in turn is an A record pointing to your IP address. Whoever hosts your domain A records also hosts the MX record. e.g. you have an A record 'mail.fredbloggs.tld' which resolves to your IP address, and an MX record which resolves to 'mail.fredbloggs.tld'. You can have more than one MX record, with priorities, with e.g. a lower priority entry pointing to a backup mail server which will collect mail when your server is down, and forward it when it is back up. I've never felt the need for one, legitimate mail servers will re-try for usually a couple of days, and if your server is down for a few hours, all you will lose is spam. If a legitimate server does give up, it will notify the sender that the email did not get through. To send email directly from your server (i.e. not via a smarthost somewhere else) you need to jump through a few more hoops: you will need a DNS PTR (reverse DNS) record configured at your ISP for your IP address, you can probably do this yourself if your ISP provides a web control panel, otherwise you will need to ask for it to be done. The PTR must resolve to a hostname which resolves back to your IP address. This doesn't have to be the same hostname as your MX record uses, but it is simplest if it is. You will also need to set the FQDN or primary hostname (I don't know what Postfix calls it, but it is what is sent as the SMTP HELO or EHLO banner) of your mail server program to something which can be resolved in public DNS. You may get away with the bare domain name e.g. 'fredbloggs.tld', but strictly speaking a DNS server should not return an IP address for this. In practice, most DNS servers will return the address of 'www.fredbloggs.tld' if asked for just the domain name. That (preferably) won't be your IP address, but it will be name resolution, and at the moment, that will be enough. To be safest, configure the FQDN to be the same hostname as you used for the MX record. It doesn't have to bear any resemblance to the actual computer hostname. If you can't get the DNS records sorted out, or if your IP address is part of a block which has a bad spam history and the ISP isn't interested in keeping a good reputation, then you may need to send mail via a smarthost. Either your ISP or your domain host may provide one as part of your package. One big advantage of running your own mail server is that if your email is refused by another server, you generally have a fairly detailed report as to why it happened. > > The domain is registered on namecheap.com > > My IP address is static ipv4. > > I'm running (would like to keep running) Debian 6 32bit. Which loses security support very soon. Time to upgrade, I'm afraid. > > I've followed all the various guides that pull up in search; with > each I run into problems I can't seem to resolve. > > Can someone point me to a tutorial or provide me with some resources > I can follow? I am very appreciative with any help willing to be > offered. Thank you. > Someone else will need to help with Postfix, I'm using exim4. When this is installed, Debian provides a short questionnaire to set up most simple mail server configurations, and it is possible that Debian does something similar for Postfix. -- Joe -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20140125211206.59ad5...@jretrading.com
