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The Linux Electronic Mail Administrator HOWTO

Guylhem Aznar <guylhem at metalab.unc.edu>

v3.2, January 2000

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This document describes the setup, care and feeding of Electronic Mail (e-mail) under Linux. It is primarily intended for administrators, rather than users. (See the Mail-User's-HOWTO for information on user issues and user agents.) You need to read this if you plan to communicate locally or to remote sites via electronic mail. You probably do *not* need to read this document if don't exchange electronic mail with other users on your system or with other sites.

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1. Introduction, copyright and standard disclaimer

• 1.1 Email and spamming
• 1.2 Goals
• 1.3 New versions
• 1.4 Feedback
• 1.5 Copyright
• 1.6 Limited warranty

2. Other sources of information

• 2.1 Mail User's HOWTO There is a Mail User's HOWTO, which focuses on user issues. It is currently maintained by Eric S. Raymond; you should be able to view it on the World Wide Web at
• 2.2 USENET
• 2.3 Mailing Lists
• 2.4 Other documents from LDP
• 2.5 Books

3. How Electronic Mail Works

• 3.1 Mail between full-time Internet machines
• 3.2 Notifiers
• 3.3 Mail to part-time Internet machines
• 3.4 Remote mail and remote-mail protocols
• 3.5 Mailbox formats

4. Requirements

• 4.1 Hardware

5. Choosing a Mail Transport Agent

• 5.1 sendmail
• 5.2 smail v3.2
• 5.3 qmail
• 5.4 exim

6. Installing Transport Software

• 6.1 Qmail v1.03
• 6.2 Smail v3.1
• 6.3 OUTDATED SECTION: Sendmail+IDA
• 6.4 Sendmail 8.x
• 6.5 Local Delivery Agents

7. User Agent Administration

• 7.1 Mutt
• 7.2 Elm
• 7.3 Mailx

8. Handling remote mail

• 8.1 History
• 8.2 Getting mail
• 8.3 Sending mail
• 8.4 Reading mail
• 8.5 Testing
• 8.6 Using

9. Acknowledgements

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