Now that you’ve got John Doe’s account up and running, let’s set up the mail server so he can send and receive email.

Note that you can’t set up the mail server until you have properly configured DNS as well as Open Directory to create network accounts as we’ve done in our earlier lessons.

As usual, fire up Server Admin and sign on.

• Click on Mail under Computer & Services for your server and press the Setting tab on the bottom. You should now be in General Settings.

 

Here, you can choose the type of mail service you want to use for your server. Both POP (Post Office Protocol) and IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) has their strengths and weaknesses but the majority of people use POP to access their email.

POP works by downloading your emails to your computer but once you do, it will get erased. IMAP on the other hand will always keep your emails on the server until you erase it.

• Enable POP, IMAP or both.
• Enable SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) and check Allow incoming mail.
• Put in your domain name, then your host name. Save your settings.

• Click on the Relay tab. The Accept STMP relay only… check box should be enabled by default with the proper IPs for your server and directory domain. The reason is to prevent unwanted relaying of emails like spam from the outside.

• Click on the Advanced tab.

Here, you’ll control what kind of authentication that’s used for each of the three protocols used for mail services. For security purposes, you wouldn’t want passwords and other information to be sent without some kind of encryption. Otherwise, it can easily be intercepted.

You’ll have to decide which type of authentication is appropriate for your use, and keep in mind that certain email clients may not be compatible with certain authentication methods. You’ll have to acquire that information and make changes accordingly.

For this example, I’ll be using a POP account with Kerberos authentication.

• Click on the Hosting tab. Press the “+” button and add your domain along with aliases for other protocols that will point to your server. Save your settings.
• Now you can press the Start Service button to start your mail server.

• Click the overview tab to see the status of your mail server.

Next, you’ll need to make changes to your router so that SMTP is forwarded to your mail server. The standard port number for SMTP is 25 via TCP protocol. If you have any firewalls running, you’ll also need to open port 25 so that mail traffic can get through.

You’ll also need to log into your registrar account where you registered your domain to forward emails to your email server. There should be an option to do so under domain management.

Now that your mail server is up and running, we’ll set up the client in the next lesson.

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