Christopher Cowart wrote: > >> Thanks Chris, I never understood this [EMAIL PROTECTED] (probably because I >> have inadequate knowledge of many matters relating to mail within an OS). >> Where is [EMAIL PROTECTED], where is mail for [EMAIL PROTECTED] stored, how >> is >> it meant to be retrieved? > localhost means your box. Any network traffic destined for the localhost > goes through the "loopback device" and shows up right where it left. > localhost resolves to 127.0.0.1, as you'll notice in any default > /etc/hosts. If you have sshd running on a box, you can "ssh localhost". > If you have apache running, you could type in your browser > "http://localhost/";. Using localhost works on Windows too... > > Most importantly (to this discussion) ... >> Is this meant to be a real (external) mail server e.g. smtp.my_isp.com, >> or is there a Linux OS setup I can use internally without mail leaving >> the box? > If you have an MTA (Mail transfer agent) running on your box, you can > relay e-mail through your localhost. However, chances are you don't want > to run a full-blown MTA, not even to deliver root e-mails. These > programs would include postfix, exim, and sendmail. Although it can be > quite trivial to restrict traffic to your localhost, an MTA like postfix > is really overkill for a personal computer.
Indeed. > Instead, you can configure ssmtp to relay through somebody elses' SMTP > server. The problem is that if you e-mail something to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]", > but connect to smtp.yourisp.com, localhost still means "127.0.0.1," > which as far as smtp.yourisp.com is concerned, is /their/ localhost, not > yours. Thus, you implement a reverse alias in /etc/ssmtp/revaliases. > That way, any outgoing mail destined for root, the headers can be > rewritten to have it sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Understood. > So, if you're not running an smtp server on your localhost (and you > probably don't need to be... shouldn't be), you could relay through your > ISP. But, you may not want clear text about problems with your machine > flying around the internet... It does raise security concerns, but > you're probably ok to do it. I am thinking that mailing is probably not required for my needs. The dead.letter file in /root should capture all these messages? Thanks again a most clear explanation. -- Regards, Mick -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
