How do I configure outgoing email via an imap mail server ?

[Mark Hobley]

I have configured a computer as a mail server on my network. This is
configured with the following packages:

Retchmail - This retrieves mail from my ISPs POP3 mailbox
Exim - This delivers the mail retrieved by retchmail to a local maildir
Courier-imap - This allows the remote mail client to read the mail messages

On a remote client, I use the following command to read the mail on the server:

mutt -f imap://charon

where charon is the name of the mail server, as defined in /etc/hosts on the
client.

I can see and read incoming mail messages on my client.

I have not yet configured outgoing mail, since I don't know how to do this at
the moment.

The current situation is as follows:

Attempting to compose an outgoing message on the mail client on the remote
machine, gives an error when the message is composed for sending:

2004-12-05 18:04:12 Failed to open configuration file /etc/exim/exim.conf
Error sending message, child exited 1 ().

My questions are as follows:

Does this error relate to the local machine or the imap server on my lan? I
require all mail to go via the mail server machine (charon).

Do I have to add anything to the mail client to send via charon, or is my
command line "mutt -f imap://charon" sufficient?

Do I need another package on the mail server to deliver outgoing mail via SMTP
or will Exim do the trick?

What configuration changes do I need to make?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Regards,

Mark.
--
Mark Hobley
393 Quinton Road West
QUINTON
Birmingham
B32 1QE

Reply to: markhobley at hotpop dot do_not_type_this_bit com

http://markhobley.yi.org/

[DEMAINE Benoit-Pierre]

SNIP : I did no read all your post; just the topic :

you can not configure outgoing through IMAP : imap is just for getting.

sending is done by SMTP. SMTP is usually provided by your provider. If
no, it is sometims possible to use foreign SMTP.

- --
DEMAINE Benoît-Pierre http:/www.demaine.info/
\_o< apt-get remove ispell >o_/
There're 10 types of people: those who can count in binary and those who
can't

[Jeffrey Froman]

Post by Mark Hobley
Do I have to add anything to the mail client to send via charon, or is my
command line "mutt -f imap://charon" sufficient?

As DEMAINE pointed out, IMAP is only a retrieval protocol. For sending, you
need to set up another protocol, namely SMTP.

Post by Mark Hobley
Do I need another package on the mail server to deliver outgoing mail via
SMTP or will Exim do the trick?

You will need:

1. An SMTP server on Charon
2. A mail client that can be configured to use Charon as its outgoing SMTP
server.

Unfortunately, as cool as mutt is, as far as I know it does not have the
ability to use a remote SMTP server, so it cannot be configured to use
charon for sending mail. Thus, I assume that mutt is trying to use EXIM on
your local machine (not on charon), and that your local EXIM is not
configured, hence the error.

First of all, you'll need to make sure that a working SMTP server is running
on Charon. Then, you have a couple of options:

1. Use a different mail client (such as Pine)

(or, more difficult:)
2. Install another SMTP server on your local machine, and configure it to
forward mail through charon's SMTP server.

Good luck,
Jeffrey