central mail

[Robert Brockway]

On Tue, 9 Dec 2003, Chris Aitken wrote:

> James Knott wrote:
>
> > Fetchmail can be used to collect the mail from a POP server.
>
> So, the pop server would be pop3.onlink.net as per usual?
>
> But the mail clients would be Fetchmail?

Hi Chris.  Fetchmail is a pop3 client (actually it does other protocols as
well).  It will pull your mail from your ISP (or whereever) and send it to
a local MTA (mail trasport agent like Sendmail or Postfix) ...

The MTA runs on the box you want to hold your mail on (your mail server)
and is fed by fetchmail.  Popclient (fetchmail's predecessor) didn't send
mail to an MTA but instead write it directly into people's mailboxes.
This was far less flexible.

Your mail server can hand mail out to your other machines in a variety of
ways, but IMAP would seem to be most suitable for your needs (as others
have noted).

If you are stating to play with mail there are a few terms it is worth
knowing (in addition to MTA above):

MDA: Mail Delivery Agent.  A utility designed to delivery mail locally.
     There are lots of these.  In recent years I've been using procmail as
     an MDA for Sendmail.

MUA: Mail User Agent.  Sometimes called a Mail Client but MUA is the
     better term.  This is the thing the user interacts with to read mail.

Rob

-- 
Robert Brockway B.Sc. email: robert-5LEc/6Zm6xCUd8a0hrldnti2O/JbrIOy at public.gmane.org, zzbrock at uqconnect.net
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