[Gllug] mail servers / pop3

[Stephen Harker]

On Monday 12 November 2001 13:46, you wrote:
> > > Also, what recommendations do people have for pop3 servers?
> >
> > I could only
> >
> > > find 3: Cyrus, Courier & Qpopper.
> > > I went for Qpopper because it seemed the simplest and it
> >
> > seems to work
> >
> > > OK, though I couldn't find rpms and had to install from source.
> >
> > I just use Washington Univ imap/ipop daemon that comes as
> > default with most
> > distros. But I don't need anything more than this. Haven't
> > investigated the
> > others.
>
> I might go for this instead - I didn't find it originally because it's
> in the "imap" rpm.
Cool.
> > > I presume big companies have a separate machine for each
> >
> > server so the
> >
> > > web server *is* called "www", the pop3 server called "pop3" etc.
> >
> > You should be able to set up aliases with your dns hoster (I
> > assume your isp
> > is hosting dns for your domain) such that mail.bar.com and
> > pop3.bar.com or
> > relay.bar.com or whatever actually resolve to foo.bar.com.
> > Actually, that is
> > exactly what is happening with www.bar.com (www is always, I
> > think, an alias
> > to a real name in dns)
>
> I'm still not totally sure how DNS works. I've got a standalone server
> which runs its own caching nameserver.
> Does this mean that any DNS queries for *.bar.com will come to me? And
> then my nameserver is "authoritative" for the ".bar.com" domain? So I
> can then do all of the resolving of mail.bar.com, www.mail.com etc,
> myself?
>
> Or are these still all resolved by a higher level DNS?
Presumably, you have an ISP that provides your connection. You mentioned 
earlier that you were waiting for a DNS entry to come through. This implies 
that your domain's DNS entries are being held elsewhere (by them?). Or have 
you requested that your machine is to be authoritive for its own domain?? If 
so then you will need to set up BIND on your box to be responsible for all 
requests for your domain.
So either
a) Your ISP hosts the DNS entries for your domain and you have to ask them 
nicely (or not so nicely depending on who they are) to add a few alias 
entries (mail.bar.com, pop3.bar.com etc...) that point to your machine so 
that people can type smtp.bar.com and get the right answer (the ip address 
for your box)
OR
b) You have to set up BIND yourself so that when machines on the internet are 
looking for *.bar.com, they are directed to your machine's DNS server for the 
correct information instead.

Which is it to be???  8)

BTW, the caching server you have is purely for your own machines DNS lookups 
when it is trying to find other boxes on the internet. It shouldn't be 
accessible from outside unless you are hosting a domain as in case 'b)' above 
and then not without reconfiguring it first.

Stephen Harker
steve at pauken.co.uk, http://www.pauken.co.uk
"Stockhausen? I haven't conducted any but I once trod in some"
				 - Sir Thomas Beecham

-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at linux.co.uk
http://list.ftech.net/mailman/listinfo/gllug