I figure this is probably a solved problem, but it's one I've never looked at. And I admit to doing no research yet: I thought pointers from this group would be the place to start. I find I have a lot of mail generated by cron and the like on several local machines, and I'd like to A) centralize that mail on a local server, and B) be able to view that with Thunderbird. Platform is Debian. It's not my intention to handle my Gmail or anything like that: this is meant exclusively for handling mail from local computers. Which would also mean the ability to send mail isn't important. Currently if I want to look at local administrative mail, I have to use the nasty `mail` command from the "bsd-mailx" package. (Yes, I could install mutt - I don't like it much better. I'm well aware it's much more powerful.) But do I remember to look at these emails? No. If instead each host forwarded these mails to a single host, and I pointed Thunderbird at that ... I'd have some hope of managing this problem better. "exim4" is usually (not always) installed on Debian systems. It claims to be an MTA: my knowledge of mail is so bad I don't even know if that means it just "pulls" or is also capable of forwarding local mail to another machine? And what would be the recommended server software? Another possible solution would be to send the mail directly to a folder on the host that has Thunderbird without using a server? With the snag that the host in question isn't always on, and I wouldn't want it to run mail server software. Is that possible? Yes, I know this is probably bigger than I think. I'd still like to start poking around and finding out about it. Suggestions welcomed, thanks. -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com
I don't think you can tell Thunderbird to read local mail spool. - "Account Actions" gives you 4 choices (mail, chat, feed, newsgroup). - "Mail Account" gives you 2 choices (imap, pop). I How about cheating a bit? Symlink one of "Local Folders" to /var/spool/mail/users. Not sure how Thunderbird will handle .msf file which will be out of sync. On 2023-12-22 14:44, Giles Orr via talk wrote:
I figure this is probably a solved problem, but it's one I've never looked at. And I admit to doing no research yet: I thought pointers from this group would be the place to start.
I find I have a lot of mail generated by cron and the like on several local machines, and I'd like to A) centralize that mail on a local server, and B) be able to view that with Thunderbird. Platform is Debian. It's not my intention to handle my Gmail or anything like that: this is meant exclusively for handling mail from local computers. Which would also mean the ability to send mail isn't important.
Currently if I want to look at local administrative mail, I have to use the nasty `mail` command from the "bsd-mailx" package. (Yes, I could install mutt - I don't like it much better. I'm well aware it's much more powerful.) But do I remember to look at these emails? No. If instead each host forwarded these mails to a single host, and I pointed Thunderbird at that ... I'd have some hope of managing this problem better.
"exim4" is usually (not always) installed on Debian systems. It claims to be an MTA: my knowledge of mail is so bad I don't even know if that means it just "pulls" or is also capable of forwarding local mail to another machine? And what would be the recommended server software?
Another possible solution would be to send the mail directly to a folder on the host that has Thunderbird without using a server? With the snag that the host in question isn't always on, and I wouldn't want it to run mail server software. Is that possible?
Yes, I know this is probably bigger than I think. I'd still like to start poking around and finding out about it. Suggestions welcomed, thanks.
-- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
On 2023-12-22 14:44, Giles Orr via talk wrote:
... I find I have a lot of mail generated by cron and the like on several local machines, and I'd like to A) centralize that mail on a local server, and B) be able to view that with Thunderbird. Platform is Debian. It's not my intention to handle my Gmail or anything like that: this is meant exclusively for handling mail from local computers. Which would also mean the ability to send mail isn't important.
Exim4 would be the right solution on whichever host you designate your mailserver. Enable listening on port 25 on your LAN, making absolutely sure spammers can't get at it, and disable relaying. Choose some local domain and tell exim to accept mail for that, and alias root and all the other usual system users to your own userid. Verify you get any mail it handles for root at local domain. (I use mutt directly on the mailserver, but setting up something like Courier IMAP to permit Thunderbird on your workstation to access your inbox should be somewhere near straightforward.) Then on the other hosts, apt install nullmailer and give it a config with the site's local domain to tack onto usernames and the hostname of your mailserver to which to punt the mail. You should see a test-o-gram arrive in your inbox, and if not both hosts should say something in their logs. Anthony
On my mail server (which runs an exim4 smarthost) my /etc/aliases resembles: # /etc/aliases mailer-daemon: postmaster postmaster: root nobody: root .. root: mgalea <---- Note My /etc/mailname holds "galeahome.ca" Any root bound mail on that machine is forwarded to mgalea@galeahome.ca by exim. Thunderbird on my personal machine collects the mail from the mail server. A thunderbird message filter "From Contains root@galeahome.ca" matches the email and steers it to a mail subfolder entitled "root". I get lots of mail from the UPS about power failures. I can also send mail from various machines crontabs, e.g. every month a crontab entry: 0 0 1 * * root COLUMNS=160 dpkg -l | mail -s "dpkg revisions" mgalea@galeahome.ca will forward the current state of my dpkg revs on that machine, and goes to the same thunderbird dir on my personal machine. Does that work? On 2023-12-22 14:44, Giles Orr via talk wrote:
I figure this is probably a solved problem, but it's one I've never looked at. And I admit to doing no research yet: I thought pointers from this group would be the place to start.
I find I have a lot of mail generated by cron and the like on several local machines, and I'd like to A) centralize that mail on a local server, and B) be able to view that with Thunderbird. Platform is Debian. It's not my intention to handle my Gmail or anything like that: this is meant exclusively for handling mail from local computers. Which would also mean the ability to send mail isn't important.
Currently if I want to look at local administrative mail, I have to use the nasty `mail` command from the "bsd-mailx" package. (Yes, I could install mutt - I don't like it much better. I'm well aware it's much more powerful.) But do I remember to look at these emails? No. If instead each host forwarded these mails to a single host, and I pointed Thunderbird at that ... I'd have some hope of managing this problem better.
"exim4" is usually (not always) installed on Debian systems. It claims to be an MTA: my knowledge of mail is so bad I don't even know if that means it just "pulls" or is also capable of forwarding local mail to another machine? And what would be the recommended server software?
Another possible solution would be to send the mail directly to a folder on the host that has Thunderbird without using a server? With the snag that the host in question isn't always on, and I wouldn't want it to run mail server software. Is that possible?
Yes, I know this is probably bigger than I think. I'd still like to start poking around and finding out about it. Suggestions welcomed, thanks.
-- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
-- Michael Galea
| From: Giles Orr via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | "exim4" is usually (not always) installed on Debian systems. | From: Anthony de Boer via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | Exim4 would be the right solution on whichever host you designate your | mailserver. | From: Michael Galea via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | | On my mail server (which runs an exim4 smarthost) my /etc/aliases resembles: I used to use Sendmail but switched to Postfix some time this century. Why do you choose Exim instead? Is it just that Exim is the default on debian? Postfix tries to be a Sendmail replacement, but better. That made the transition easier. Security-by-design has been a focus of Postfix. I seem to remember at least one disastrous security problem with Exim.
Wow this takes me back. I haven't had to deal (much) with mail-agent comparisons for more than a decade. I've worked with both for both Exim and Postfix, long ago and far away. Based on my memory: Exim is more monolithic and quite a lot easier to understand for an SMTP newcomer to admin while Postfix is faster, more modular, and takes a little more effort to install and maintain. GPL purists will also prefer Exim. Functionally and feature-wise they're nearly identical, and both appear to be actively maintained. HTH On Sun, Dec 24, 2023 at 11:50 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk < talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
| From: Giles Orr via talk <talk@gtalug.org>
| "exim4" is usually (not always) installed on Debian systems.
| From: Anthony de Boer via talk <talk@gtalug.org>
| Exim4 would be the right solution on whichever host you designate your | mailserver.
| From: Michael Galea via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | | On my mail server (which runs an exim4 smarthost) my /etc/aliases resembles:
I used to use Sendmail but switched to Postfix some time this century. Why do you choose Exim instead? Is it just that Exim is the default on debian?
Postfix tries to be a Sendmail replacement, but better. That made the transition easier.
Security-by-design has been a focus of Postfix. I seem to remember at least one disastrous security problem with Exim. --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
-- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56
On 2023-12-24 11:49, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
I used to use Sendmail but switched to Postfix some time this century. Why do you choose Exim instead? Is it just that Exim is the default on debian?
A lot depends on which one you know how to drive. I've run Exim at a couple of jobs and know some of the experts online, so it's what I grab when I have to set one up. Note, I use a single config file the way the Exim community means for it to be done and nuke Debian's attempt at modularizing when that's the underlying OS. In the past I've had occasion to drive smail2, smail3, qm**l, sendmail, postfix, exim, and nullmailer over the course of being postmaster at a few places. Most of that I'm pleased not to have to revisit. (Note I blip the vowels from qm**l as was the custom on alt.sysadmin.recovery back in the day; a certain MTA author grepped his Usenet feed and would join any discussion that mentioned his work so it became one of the things not mentioned there.) (And apropos that newsgroup and MTAs, someone there had a formal curse: "May your sendmail.cf be edited in Notepad, only to be discovered on the next reboot".) Merry Christmas, everyone. Anthony
On Sun, 24 Dec 2023 21:13:55 -0500 Anthony de Boer via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On 2023-12-24 11:49, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
I used to use Sendmail but switched to Postfix some time this century. Why do you choose Exim instead? Is it just that Exim is the default on debian?
A lot depends on which one you know how to drive. I've run Exim at a couple of jobs and know some of the experts online, so it's what I grab when I have to set one up. Note, I use a single config file the way the Exim community means for it to be done and nuke Debian's attempt at modularizing when that's the underlying OS.
one config file is a major plus for me too, but postfix has a lot of advantages also, imho Postfix & Exim are both very mature and cool I also use/like both and deciding which one is usually depends on which distro.
In the past I've had occasion to drive smail2, smail3, qm**l, sendmail, postfix, exim, and nullmailer over the course of being postmaster at a few places. Most of that I'm pleased not to have to revisit.
(Note I blip the vowels from qm**l as was the custom on alt.sysadmin.recovery back in the day; a certain MTA author grepped his Usenet feed and would join any discussion that mentioned his work so it became one of the things not mentioned there.)
I used qmail the 1st time around 1997, when I was still @compuserv, it was quite a lot more secure and very cool then :) but yeah, djb was hectic, (mind you, so were many others) it was djbdns that made me stop using all things djb tho.
(And apropos that newsgroup and MTAs, someone there had a formal curse: "May your sendmail.cf be edited in Notepad, only to be discovered on the next reboot".)
I remember this curse and never quite got it... so, you remember? we had this 'uptime' ego thing going way back then (so who would reboot?) and then, so what if your mta has ^M and is down for the minute, hello, you just rebooted! - anyway, my immeditate thoughts were not even that, it was: someone allowed their sendmail.cf to be edited should not admin a mta... I still lovingly think back to BOFH, now that was exceptional content :)
Merry Christmas, everyone.
+1 and I see your merry xmas and raise you a Happy New Year to all :)
participants (7)
-
ac -
Anthony de Boer -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
Evan Leibovitch -
Giles Orr -
Michael Galea -
William Park