Jaroslaw Rafa via Postfix-users <mailto:postfix-users@postfix.org>
April 29, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Dnia 29.04.2025 o godz. 19:10:19 Rooma Zoom Zoom via Postfix-users pisze:
A local email server would be useful for many purposes as an
additional method for communicating between all the different types
of devices on the network, in particular for being able to send
files between them with only the use of email clients rather than
needing to configure networking.
How do you want to use an email client without networking configured? :)
Additionally email has a lot of unique aspects that SSH and SFTP
don't have, such as being able to alert you when something in
particular has been sent.
Yes, I agree local email server can be very useful for many things, but I
don't think file transfer is one of them.
I've seen some links that explain how to use Postfix as a local
email server, such as this one:
https://gist.github.com/raelgc/6031274 It mentions using the
Thunderbird email client with the "Unix Mailspool (Movemail)"
setting, but it didn't mention any standard-looking types of
settings. It uses "localhost" which I assume will only work with an
email client that is on the computer where Postfix is running.
Yes, "movemail" setting is for strictly local usage scenario, ie. when the
mail client runs on the same computer as mailbox is located.
But
wouldn't it be relatively easy to allow the rest of the network to
access the server as well?
Postfix is only a MTA, ie. it sends and receives mail, and stores the
received mail in the user's mailbox. To access that mailbox remotely, you
need additional software.
The simplest way is to install a console mode email client (like mutt, which
I'm using :)) on the server, and ssh into the server to run the mail client
from command line and read/send mail. But this has disadvantages, like you
can see only the plain text content in emails, and to download/upload
attachments, you have to use tools like SCP anyway.
Therefore it's common to install an IMAP server in addition to a MTA (a
popular IMAP server that is often used together with Postfix is Dovecot), to
be able to access the mailbox remotely with email clients like Thunderbird.
So you need both Postfix and Dovecot to be able to use mail non-locally.
You may add a webmail application (like eg. Roundcube) to complete the stack
(but you need an IMAP server anyway, as most webmail applications run on top
of IMAP), to access the mail via a web browser, without a mail client. Or
you can skip this and just use a mail client to connect to IMAP server.
How do most people use Postfix? As far as I can tell most people
use it to enable scripts to send emails as alerts. But how do
people receive those emails if Postfix can't easily be interfaced
with email clients?
See above.
What is it about private networks that mail programs don't like?
Aren't private networks essentially the same as larger ones where
the difference is mostly just one of configuration?
Nothing. You are completely right, email in private network can work exactly
the same way as on the Internet. If you have only one mail server, and your
mail clients are all set up to access that server, you don't even actually
need a functioning DNS for that, the only thing you need is that the private
domain you choose is set up in the Postfix configuration so that Postfix
recognizes it as its proper destination domain.
Rooma Zoom Zoom via Postfix-users <mailto:postfix-users@postfix.org>
April 29, 2025 at 7:10 PM
I'm a systems administrator, I use the types of alternatives that are
being mentioned here such as SSH and SFTP. However I've been looking
to add a local email server to exploit the unique benefits of using
email.
A local email server would be useful for many purposes as an
additional method for communicating between all the different types of
devices on the network, in particular for being able to send files
between them with only the use of email clients rather than needing to
configure networking.
Additionally email has a lot of unique aspects that SSH and SFTP don't
have, such as being able to alert you when something in particular has
been sent.
Perhaps it might be true that sending large files via email would be
overkill for some people's networks, but for mine I don't think
sending large files via email would be any problem.
I could set up a domain name for the server instead of using an IP
address if that is necessary. I've set up local Apache web servers
with domain names before.
I've seen some links that explain how to use Postfix as a local email
server, such as this one: https://gist.github.com/raelgc/6031274 It
mentions using the Thunderbird email client with the "Unix Mailspool
(Movemail)" setting, but it didn't mention any standard-looking types
of settings. It uses "localhost" which I assume will only work with
an email client that is on the computer where Postfix is running. But
wouldn't it be relatively easy to allow the rest of the network to
access the server as well?
How do most people use Postfix? As far as I can tell most people use
it to enable scripts to send emails as alerts. But how do people
receive those emails if Postfix can't easily be interfaced with email
clients?
What is it about private networks that mail programs don't like?
Aren't private networks essentially the same as larger ones where the
difference is mostly just one of configuration?
Thanks for your help.
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Jaroslaw Rafa via Postfix-users <mailto:postfix-users@postfix.org>
April 29, 2025 at 6:42 PM
No, email in general (not only Postfix) is not, and never was, a proper
tool to transfer large files. And on local network it's definitely an
"overkill".
For file transfer, you should use tools dedicated to file transfer. It's
just obvious. Right tools for the right job.
Myself, I use just a standard SSH server on my Linux computer (you can
easily install one on OS X as well), and on a mobile device I use a
SCP/SFTP
client to transfer files to/from the computer (there are many such clients
available, the application I use is called Admin Hands, but you may choose
another one). SCP/SFTP should definitely allow you to easily transfer
files
of any size (and without the overhead related to base64 encoding, which
increases size of your file sent by email by at least 33%).
Of course, there are various mobile-specific apps for file transfer,
but for
me SSH/SCP/SFTP has the advantage that it's standard, and it works the
same
way regardless of what device/OS you use it on. I use the same method for
transferring files from/to another computers in my network to my "main"
computer, and I don't have to use different tools on different devices
(and
learn them all).
Rooma Zoom Zoom via Postfix-users <mailto:postfix-users@postfix.org>
April 29, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Hello,
I'm looking for a way to transfer images and videos from my mobile
devices to an OS X computer on my local network by emailing that
information locally, where I would like to have a Postfix server
running on OS X which would enable not needing that information to be
sent through an email server on the internet. In particular I want to
be able to transfer large video files without any upper size limit.
Would I be able to access Postfix with my email client softwares
locally on the network just like accessing any external email server,
including to send large attachments?
Thanks for your help.
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