Hosting web - 620 Part V . Running Servers Preparing Your
620 Part V . Running Servers Preparing Your System You will need a few common items for either configuration, starting with the proper hardware. A personal mail server can easily run on a Pentium-class computer, although you may notice occasional slowdowns while incoming messages are being scanned. Disk space requirements depend mostly on how much mail you want to have room for, so plan on having a few gigabytes for the operating system (which will leave you plenty of extra, just in case), plus the amount of mail you want to store. The operating system should be installed with only the basic set of packages before you begin these examples. Some general information about the installation is provided in Chapter 9. Although the software described in this chapter works even if you aren t running Debian, the installation methods will not. If you don t have a spare system to act as a dedicated mail server, you can still use it as your workstation, although this is obviously recommended only for personal use. Network Configuration Your network settings should also be properly configured before you begin installing the mail software. The exact requirements depend on the method by which mail will be delivered to your server: . Direct delivery is the method used by most traditional mail servers. DNS records tell remote servers that any mail addressed to your domain should be sent to your server via SMTP. . Retrieval from a mail host is also possible using an MRA (Mail Retrieval Agent) such as Fetchmail. This option can be used when you have a mailbox under a shared domain but want to access the mail on your own server. This can also be done in combination with direct delivery if you have both your own domain and mailboxes under shared domains. Configuration of Fetchmail is explained in the Configuring Mail Clients section of this chapter. Configuring for Direct Delivery For direct delivery to function, the SMTP service (TCP port 25) must always be accessible to the outside world through a fixed name in DNS. This name will be in the form of an A (Address) record. A records allow DNS resolver processes to determine the IP address associated with a specific name and are used by most of the common protocols on the Internet. A typical DNS A record looks something like this: bigserver.example.org IN A 1.2.18.12 The first parameter, bigserver.example.org, is the label, and the second parameter is the class (IN for Internet, which is where most DNS records are found). The A indicates the type, and the final parameter is the IP address associated with the label. Note
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