How to Configure E-Mail
From NetBSD Wiki
This tutorial will help you implement a non-enterprise, personal e-mail system "gracefully" on NetBSD, utilizing as many of its time-saving facilities as possible. It is assumed the reader is comfortable with the NetBSD/*NIX command line, the pkgsrc system, and possesses at least some knowledge of electronic mail. This guide will not be presented in step-by-step format, but it will provide many annotated configuration file snippets.
In "The Basics," a survey of tools standard in the NetBSD base installation will be identified. The responsibilities of a mail user agent, mail delivery agent, and mail transfer agent will be discussed. postfix(1), NetBSD's default MTA, will be discussed only briefly, as will the MUA/MDA mailx(1). A brief survey of other e-mail agents will be explored, including the popular mutt, procmail, and esmtp. Finally, mailwrapper(8) will be introduced, and the reader will be shown how to designate a system-wide default MTA. This section serves as an introduction to the following sections, and may be skipped.
"For Individual Machines" will guide the reader through implementing an e-mail system on NetBSD for a single computer with an internet connection. This is intended for a user either getting acquainted with NetBSD, transitioning from another *NIX or *NIX-like operating system (i.e. GNU/Linux), or someone wishing to revisit their existing configuration. By the end of this section, the reader will be able to configure a basic e-mail system, employing esmtp and mutt.
"For Small Networks" targets the hobbyist or casual administrator of a small network server.
This tutorial is not intended for system administrators wishing to deploy a dedicated mail server of any grade.
The Basics
As far as the internet is concerned, there is no entity that can mandate or enforce networking protocols, or how software engineers implement them in their products. Thus far in internet history, people can send and receive e-mail on various platforms using various e-mail clients because the clients adhere, at least in part, to published protocol standards. There are no "protocol cops." A dramatic case study of standards deviation is the "browser war" of the mid-1990s[1][2][3].
Why mention standards in an e-mail tutorial? It is important to understand the arbitrary nature of network communications, not to mention its jargon and models, when hacking dense configuration files.
For Individual Machines
TO DO
For Small Networks
TO DO
