Help setting up a Mail server!!!!

garymum4d

garymum4d

Idiot
Can anyone help me set up a mail server ?

Our domain name is hosted by an ISP and mail is forwarded to our BT broadband mailbox
I have a network of 10 Mac's all running 10.2.6, one Mac has 10.2.6 server, I have set up user accounts on the server for each mac, all with mail e-mail enabled.
Internal mail works fine i.e. "user@serverIPaddress".

To deal with external mail, what we do at the moment is use Mail.app to download the mail from the BT broadband mail box, then using "rules" Transfer the mail to the appropriate mail box, this works fine until we get an e-mail sent to 2 or more addresses because it transfers to the first mail box but not any more. If I Forward the message then you cannot reply to the original sender. Also any appointment dates sent via Microsoft Entourage (used by most users on my network) are not compatible with Mac Mail.app and therefore the message gets corrupt when transferred.

So what I would like to do is have the ISP who hosts my domain name set up the MX records to send the mail direct to my mail server, then set up my own MX records to distribute the mail to each user, but I do not know how to set up DNS, BIND or MX records, or even understand the principles of it.

Or am I better of to host my domain name myself, this still leaves me with the problem of not knowing how to set things up. I have read the Admin guides but it goes straight over my head.

If you can help, please guide me like you would an idiot (step by step) because I'm sure I will get confused

Thanks!!!!
 
I would strongly recommend against hosting anything yourself, esp. if you aren't really sure of what you're doing. The reason is that even now, even though things aren't working the way you want, you still are getting the emails, even if you have to massage them by hand. If you point the MX records to yourself, then if your server is down (the machine itself or sendmail) then any emails start bouncing back to their senders and your hosed. Things get even worse if your doing your own DNS as that's two different things that can be misconfigured.

You say you have a BT mail account. Is this one a POP3 server? I assume not since you're saying that you are accessing all the emails of all the accounts and then filtering. The easiest solution would be to get BT to setup pop3 access. Then each user just points their mail app to the BT server, logs in, and then they will only get their own emails.
 
Ok I need to ask you a few questions.


What type of connection do you have ISDN, ADSL or Dialup?

If you have Broadband (ADSL) do you have a NON NAT or NAT. You can check this out on your BT Connect account paper work.

If you have a NAT service you will have to go the pop3 route.

If you have the NON NAT version you can have the MX Record pointed at your Static IP address BT will leave the backup Mail Address pointed to their servers so if your line is down you wont get any emails bouncing back.


Where about are you in the UK ?
 
Originally posted by StarBuck
Ok I need to ask you a few questions.


What type of connection do you have ISDN, ADSL or Dialup?

If you have Broadband (ADSL) do you have a NON NAT or NAT. You can check this out on your BT Connect account paper work.

If you have a NAT service you will have to go the pop3 route.

If you have the NON NAT version you can have the MX Record pointed at your Static IP address BT will leave the backup Mail Address pointed to their servers so if your line is down you wont get any emails bouncing back.


Where about are you in the UK ?
Click to expand...

We have ADSL, I'm not sure about the NAT details, I have looked at the paperwork but cannot see where it states what service we have. all I can tell you is I have a BT installed router/ADSLmodem, this router has it's own IP address and I cannot change it, when I connect to the router via a web browser the only option I have is to connect or disconnect, Although I will be replacing this router with a Netgear Router/ADSLmodem that can be cofigured to direct port numbers to any IP address on the network and I intend to point everything to our OSX server

I am in Basildon, Essex.


binaryDigit

The mail is accessed by pop3. All our mail goes into one BT mailbox, our email addresses are "anything"@screenhousegroup.com so if we log into the BT mailbox we see all the mail, it would be easy for each user to download all the mail then just filter their own but some of our mails have 20meg+ attachments and we do not want to waste time and disc space downloading files we dont all need. I wish we could log into the BT mail box and just see our own mail.


Thanks for the quick reply guy's
 
You have a NAT Service so you will not be able to run the osx mail server unless you upgrade the ADSL Line to a NON NAT SERVICE.

What binaryDigit suggested about pop3 accounts would work, you could get BT to setup some additional email address or if you dont like BT use another ISP to host the address for you.
 
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