Mail Server Setup Guide for RHEL/CentOS 5
Posted by consultant under CentOS 5 , Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5[20] Comments
This guide will show you how to setup an email server accessible using a POP3, IMAP or web browser client. It will also show you how to include virus scanning and spam tagging in the mail server. If you have an existing Active Directory or LDAP infrastructure, the last section will show you how to integrate it into your email server so you won’t have to maintain two sets of user accounts.
How to install Linux
You can use either Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or CentOS 5. RHEL 5 can be purchased from Red Hat and comes with support. CentOS 5 on the other hand can be downloaded here.
To simplify our administration tasks, log in as the user root and specify your root password. This is not the recommended way of administering a Linux box, but for the tasks at hand it is the most efficient way.
How to install SMTP, POP3, IMAP and Webmail service
Postfix will be providing the SMTP service, Dovecot will provide the POP3 and IMAP service, while Apache and SquirrelMail will provide the Webmail service.
How to create mailboxes, aliases and distribution groups
How to add antivirus and antispam filtering
We will be using Clam AntiVirus for virus scanning, SpamAssassin for the spam tagging and MailScanner to integrate them into Postfix.
You can greatly reduce the volume of spam and viruses reaching your mail server if you are willing to give up something. If you are willing to have your mail delayed (time), install Postgrey. If you are willing to spend (money), get the Barracuda Spam Firewall.
How to integrate Active Directory/LDAP
Integrating Active Directory/LDAP into your mail server will turn your Linux email server into a lean and mean Exchange like machine. And you won’t have to deal with Linux system accounts or edit configuration files for common tasks like creating mailboxes and mailing lists. And finally, you can provide your users with standard address book.
Using Winbind to integrate Active Directory user accounts.Another way to integrate Active Directory into your mail server. I highly recommend using the virtual user solution above instead of this one.
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