[pups] Totally off topic question

[pups] Totally off topic question

[Robin Birch]

Hi Everyone,
Sorry for asking this here but you are probably the best people to ask.

I'm in the process of packing up my house to redecorate it and move to 
another.  As a result my 11/83 has been packed up and I won't get to 
play for some time :-(.  However, the question -

I am probably going to get a broadband connection to wherever I end up. 
I will then network all of the various boxes together and connect 
everything (including the PDP) to the Internet.  I intend having one box 
set up as a server for FTP, email and so on and everything else using 
that.  I will probably use a Linux box for this.  Can I get a pop3 
system for it that will talk to sendmail (only because sendmail is the 
only mail system that I have used) or can I get a reasonable pop3 server 
for Linux.

Anybody else has ideas on how I should do this then hints tips etc. 
gratefully received.

In case the above seems stupid the idea is to take all email through a 
server, weed out all incoming rubbish, and route it to various 
individual's (partner, daughter etc.) PCs.

Cheers

Robin
-- 
Robin Birch

[pups] Totally off topic question

[Peter Turnbull]

On Mar 21, 23:04, Robin Birch wrote:

> I am probably going to get a broadband connection to wherever I end
up.
> I will then network all of the various boxes together and connect
> everything (including the PDP) to the Internet.  I intend having one
box
> set up as a server
[...]
> In case the above seems stupid the idea is to take all email through
a
> server, weed out all incoming rubbish, and route it to various
> individual's (partner, daughter etc.) PCs.

This is exactly what I do, though I have the sending and receiving
sides of the email equation separate.  I have one machine that acts as
a mail hub.  It runs sendmail with a custom sendmail.cf which is
capable of delivering internal mail either to /var/mail, which is then
exported to other machines, or via UUCP or SMTP to other machines.  It
also batches up outgoing mail and sends it to my ISP's mail server
("Smart Host") at specific times of the day (mine's not an always-on
connection).

All the other machines either use UUCP, or use sendmail with the
"nullclient" .cf file, to send mail to my hub machine.  No reason why
the hub couldn't run a POP3 server for the benefit of Windoze PCs as
well, but I've never felt the need :-)  If you go that route, I'd
suggest you think about IMAP rather than POP, though.  As far as
getting mail from my ISP, I use fetchmail -- but if you do this, be
sure that your ISP puts something in the headers that makes it easy for
fetchmail to tell which user it's really for (don't forget about
mailing lists), and that you have a catchall rule to handle mail you
didn't think of.

If you have an always-on connection, you could have your DNS MX
record(s) set to point to your hub machine, and needn't use fetchmail.
 However, if you do that, be sure to set up sendmail with anti-relaying
and all the proper security patches.



-- 
Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Network Manager
						University of York

[pups] Totally off topic question

[Ian King]

Yup.  I used to do that, but had an older version of sendmail and got
'co-opted' as a relay host for a spammer.  :-(  But the Linux distribution
included a pop3 server out of the box, and my Windows machines were able to
connect to it just fine.

FWIW: rather than update sendmail and hack another .cf, I bought a
Windows-based mail server from a company called True North Software
(www.tnsoft.com), and I'm running it on Windows 2000.  It also provides a
POP3 server that the other machines access (so my family can have email,
too), and is a complete no-brainer to administer.  Once upon a time I
thought it was fun to administer a mail server; now I really appreciate this
'hands-off' solution.  :-)  OK, I paid $150 for a piece of software, but
when I consider the value (to me) of my free time, that's chump change....

Instead, I use my free time to hack 2.11BSD and UNIX v6!  :-)  Cheers -- Ian

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Turnbull" <pete@dunnington.u-net.com>
To: "Robin Birch" <robinb at ruffnready.co.uk>; <pups at minnie.tuhs.org>
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 4:31 PM
Subject: Re: [pups] Totally off topic question


> On Mar 21, 23:04, Robin Birch wrote:
>
> > I am probably going to get a broadband connection to wherever I end
> up.
> > I will then network all of the various boxes together and connect
> > everything (including the PDP) to the Internet.  I intend having one
> box
> > set up as a server
> [...]
> > In case the above seems stupid the idea is to take all email through
> a
> > server, weed out all incoming rubbish, and route it to various
> > individual's (partner, daughter etc.) PCs.
>
> This is exactly what I do, though I have the sending and receiving
> sides of the email equation separate.  I have one machine that acts as
> a mail hub.  It runs sendmail with a custom sendmail.cf which is
> capable of delivering internal mail either to /var/mail, which is then
> exported to other machines, or via UUCP or SMTP to other machines.  It
> also batches up outgoing mail and sends it to my ISP's mail server
> ("Smart Host") at specific times of the day (mine's not an always-on
> connection).
>
> All the other machines either use UUCP, or use sendmail with the
> "nullclient" .cf file, to send mail to my hub machine.  No reason why
> the hub couldn't run a POP3 server for the benefit of Windoze PCs as
> well, but I've never felt the need :-)  If you go that route, I'd
> suggest you think about IMAP rather than POP, though.  As far as
> getting mail from my ISP, I use fetchmail -- but if you do this, be
> sure that your ISP puts something in the headers that makes it easy for
> fetchmail to tell which user it's really for (don't forget about
> mailing lists), and that you have a catchall rule to handle mail you
> didn't think of.
>
> If you have an always-on connection, you could have your DNS MX
> record(s) set to point to your hub machine, and needn't use fetchmail.
>  However, if you do that, be sure to set up sendmail with anti-relaying
> and all the proper security patches.
>
>
>
> --
> Pete Peter Turnbull
> Network Manager
> University of York
> _______________________________________________
> PUPS mailing list
> PUPS at minnie.tuhs.org
> http://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/pups

[pups] Totally off topic question

[Peter Turnbull]

On Mar 21, 19:31, Ian King wrote:
> Yup.  I used to do that, but had an older version of sendmail and got
> 'co-opted' as a relay host for a spammer.  :-(

I've seen a few attempts to do that.  I should point out that even if
you only run sendmail for the benefit of machines on your own network,
and even if you use a dialup (rather than always-on) connection, you
want the ant-relay stuff.  I see regular attempts to connect to port 25
on my hub, even though it's behind a dynamic IP address on an ISDN
dialup (I also see regular attempts to connect to the telnet, ssh, and
ftp ports, and others, maybe 2-3 times a week.  If you run a common
operating system, don't assume that a dynamic IP address, or NAT, or
using a dialup, gives any worthwhile protection).

> FWIW: rather than update sendmail and hack another .cf, I bought a
> Windows-based mail server

Nowadays, it's easy to use m4 to set up sendmail.cf for the common
sorts of home use -- just define the settings for masquerading and
smarthost, and press go (more or less).  The only time you need to hack
it a bit is if you want something unusual, like some mail going to the
local machine and some forwarded to other machines on your network, or
using UUCP.

> Instead, I use my free time to hack 2.11BSD and UNIX v6!  :-)

I have to admit that sounds like a better use of the time :-)

-- 
Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Network Manager
						University of York