Mail Server

Trigger · 16 Jun 2006 at 12:09

Hi,

Can anyone recommend me a free internal mail server for a school please? It doesn't need to send or receive mail from outside our LAN and I think it needs some kind of web interface for them to send mail of possible

Needs to be for a windows server though if possible :cool:

Thanks

Ben

Trigger · 16 Jun 2006 at 20:03

Thanks for all the replies

Well I've tried to install hMailServer but it keeps telling me that ports 25, 110 and 143 are in use and i've looked at this in netstat -an and they aren't there- any ideas?

I've also tried Mercury with Pegasus but Mercury doesn't seem idiot proof enough for me- it keeps asking me to provide an ISP mail server address and I don't want it to touch mail coming in from outside the network

Any help appreciated, thanks

Ben

Trigger · 16 Jun 2006 at 21:20

Okay so I've managed to get mailenable set up which looks quite impressive. I've set up mailboxes etc but how exactly do the users get to their mailbox- is it web client or an exe?

Trigger · 16 Jun 2006 at 21:54

oddjob62 said:
The standard (free) version only supports POP3. So you need to use a client that supports that.

http://www.mailenable.com/features/mailservices.asp

Will pegasus work? Any ideas how I configure it? Does the standard version of ME have SMTP support then because it says the service is running :confused:

Thanks

Ben

Trigger · 16 Jun 2006 at 22:48

oddjob62 said:
Never used pegasus sorry.

Quick google brings up this
Don't know if it helps

According to that link in my last post it does support SMTP.

Oh sorry, I thought the dot lined up with POP Retrieval

I'll give that link a go tonight and see what happens- thanks

Ben

Trigger · 16 Jun 2006 at 23:02

Right, that's kinda set up how I want it not but one thing is confusing me. In pegasus setup, it asks me for the pop3 and smtp server names that I guess are associated with mailenable but what do I actually put for the addresses?

Thanks

Ben

Trigger · 17 Jun 2006 at 08:49

sja360 said:
the machines IP address that you installed the mailserver software on? atleast thats what i'd have thought. unless it isnt that clear cut?

Yeah but can I just put 'pop3.[172.17.0.4]' and 'smtp.[172.17.0.4]' or do I need something after it?

Thanks

Ben

Trigger · 17 Jun 2006 at 09:24

sja360 said:
doesnt have to be pop3.172.0.0.1 its just 172.0.0.1 i think.
and it'd be the same IP for POP3/SMTP also

Great- that's working now. Thanks

The problem I have now is that I can send mail but not receive it. I've set it up using Outlook Express for the client for now because I don't like the pegasus interface. It says the email address is rejected and the error is 0x800CCC79. The odd thing is though if I go to the mail enable admin console on the server and send some mail, it sends fine :confused:

Trigger · 17 Jun 2006 at 09:40

sja360 said:
have you tried another email address? also its an internal email address you're sending it to not something external?

Yeah, I've tried three different addresses and still the same. I created a domain in mailenable called 'Ruskin' so the address will be 'name@ruskin' which works fine if I try and send it via mailenable :confused:

Thanks for the help BTW, much appreciated :cool:

Trigger · 17 Jun 2006 at 11:59

oddjob62 said:
Mate, you may want to do some reading on how email works. (no offence intended, it will make your life a lot easier in the long run)

1. Ruskin is not a valid domain on the internet (needs to be Ruskin.com or Ruskin.co.uk etc), and you need to own that domain or at least have adminsitrative control of it.

2. How does incoming mail know to to to your mail server? You need to set up MX records to point to your server.

3. Just try it with Outlook Express for the moment as more people will have had experience with it and can help you better.

No it doesn't need to be .com or .co.uk at all- it's for internal mail only and will have no contact with external mail. I could give the extention .local, .dom or .internal if I needed to. The only problem I'm having is sending mail from outlook express- it send fine from the mailenable console :confused:

Trigger · 17 Jun 2006 at 13:42

Hmmmm, I'm confused now

I thought any mail being sent to the server would know to go there anyway because I've set it in outlook express settings- I've put the server's IP address as the SMTP server which I thought would suffice- I've never heard of MX records (But I've not really done much with DNS) :confused:

Anyone care to explain?

Thanks

Ben

Trigger · 17 Jun 2006 at 15:48

Well I'm receiving mail fine when sent by the mailenable console- it's just the sending that's the problem

Thanks for the help so far :cool:

Ben