Setting Up a Linux Mail Server – Complete Guide

This is a guide to setting up your own mail server on a LINUX machine.

Let's break the guide into some easy steps:

You will need:

• - a computer with plenty of disk space (you probably want to store all email on the server as well as on your email clients)
• - an LINUX operating system (for example Centos 5 or 6, Ubuntu, RedHat etc)
• - a permanent/reliable connection to the Internet

Next you need to download the required software and copy it to your mail server computer.

• 1) Download Hexamail Server and save the tar.gz file and the license (you receive via email) onto the computer
• 2) Unpack the hexamailserver.tar.gz file using the command
tar xvfz hexamailserver.tar.gz
• 3) This creates a subfolder called hexamailserver/ in which Hexamail will run. You can move this folder wherever you wish at this point
mv hexamailserver /data/mail server/
• 4) Switch to the extracted folder
cd hexamailserver
• 5) View the INSTALL text file for the latest specific instructions for your version of the software
more INSTALL

Now you can begin configuring Hexamail Server. After some initial steps you can use the webadmin to configure the rest of the settings

• 1) Copy the file hexamailserver.cfg.initial to hexamailserver.cfg
cp hexamailserver.cfg.initial hexamailserver.cfg
• 2) Edit the file hexamailserver.cfg
vi hexamailserver.cfg
• 3) Fill in all the required settings listed in the file
[Service] // REQUIRED: This is the list of allowed IP addresses that can connect to your s erver for administration using the remote windows administration console. AllowedIPList=127.*.*.* [Administrator] // REQUIRED: This is the password required to use any administration interface Password= [WebAdmin] // REQUIRED: This is the list of allowed IP addresses that can connect to your s erver for administration using the webadmin. AllowedIPList=127.*.*.* // REQUIRED: This is the TCP network port used for webadmin. Port=880

Now you can run Hexamail for the first time

• 1) Switch to the root user. This is required to allow Hexamail to use the ports required for email (port numbers under 1024)
su
• 2) Run the script ./start.sh provided with the software to start the Hexamail service
./start.sh
• 3) Verify there are no problems with the startup by checking the Hexamail Server log. It should eventually say Starting processing...
tail -f logs/Hexamail Server.log
• 4) You are now ready to connect to the webadmin and configure the other settings. To do this open a browser to http://yourservername:880/
If it is on this server use this link webadmin

The configuration settings are now the same as in the Windows Administration and you can use the same help file to read about the various options in the Administration sections here: Hexamail Server Help

In the WebAdmin press the help button on the page you are using to see help relating to that specific page of settings.

Alternatively you can configure most of Hexamail using the configuration file directly using the instructions in the Configuration section here: Hexamail Server Help

Hexamail Server is a full-featured mail server and can offer various services to email and calendar clients.

Here is a list of services and the ports that need to be opened on your firewall/router to access each service

In your firewall you should allow incoming TCP connections for each port listed that you require, and in your Router/NAT device setup a rule to forward TCP traffic on the listed ports to the computer running Hexamail

* As configured in your configuration file or administration interface, default settings are shown

Hexamail Server provides a complete, easy-to-deploy email server for Linux, including SMTP, IMAP, POP3, webmail, calendaring, task management and contact management in a single package. It supports SSL/TLS, STARTTLS, DKIM signing and built-in antispam, making it a powerful and self-contained alternative to complex open-source email server stacks.