Mail Server Query

[ubuntu at rio.vg]

Vinayak Mahadevan wrote:
> Basically the mail server I am building is for internal use of the company.
> I will be using the internal email server(this lacks a static ip address) to
> send mail to an external email server(which is not in our premises). So
> should any special precautions be taken.
> 

The answer as to whether it will require direct access to the 'net is a
very definite maybe.

The mail servers talk to other servers in two fashions: The first is
delivering and receiving mail.  This is on port 25.  So if your proxy
server can forward port 25, this isn't a problem.  You could also just
have your firewall forward all incoming port 25 connections from the
external mail server to the internal mail server.

The second type is getting the mail to the user.  Commonly this is POP3
on port 110 or IMAP on port 143.  There are others, but from what you've
said, I'm guessing only people inside the firewall will be picking up
their mail, so you probably don't need to worry about this.

However, if this server will ONLY be sending mail, not receiving it from
the internet, then you don't need to do anything special.  Sending out
from a firewall generally isn't a problem.

To forward all mail to the external mail server, just set
/etc/postfix/transport to the IP Address of your external mail server,
and it will forward everything there.