I used this HOWTO to build a mail server (I did it within a FreeBSD jail, but that’s a completely different discussion). The instructions are complete and I got the server working relatively easily.
I would suggest that before you start the HOWTO, that you install the following on your mail server first:
- FreeBSD Ports
- OpenSSL
- OpenSSH
- NTP
The PORTS system makes installation a breeze. OpenSSL is necessary if you want to send your passwords over an SSL connection to your web server (I highly recommend this). OpenSSH comes with a few client utilities that are worth having on your system (like the ability to create an encrypted password). NTP will keep your system clock up to date.
I had two problems with the setup (which were of my own making):
- Although I used the cut-and-paste method for much of the configuration, I was somehow still able to inject a few typo’s into the configuration files. Yeah… try to chase those down. Not fun.
- Somewhat related, I attempted to tell my Mail application that the host server was the virtual domain name. Again, this falls under the category of typographical error. (I told Mail to look for the mail at: mailhost.virtualdomain.tld rather than mailhost.myrealserver.tld. It took me a few hours to figure this one out. Ouch).
So my thanks go out to the PurpleHat Organization for a clear HOWTO for creating a mail server on FreeBSD with Postfix, Dovecot, MySQL, SpamAssassin, etc. with Virtual Domains administered with PostfixAdmin.
Glad you enjoyed the how-to. Thanks for the mention and links. Hopefully it will help many others as well. 🙂
Regards
Janky Jay… thank you for the great how-to! I was successful in creating a stand-alone mail server with incoming and outgoing mail. I really appreciate the attention to detail in your article. Thanks again!
Yeah. I used it too building my mail server. It very step by step in detail.
Thanks to the author 🙂
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