Know of a good free email server script?

[dmphotography]

Hey everyone,
I've spent hours and hours searching for this last night and had no luck. I'm having difficulties setting up and getting email server software to work correctly and I'm not for sure if it's because port 25 is blocked by my ISP or not.

I called them and they said they will if someone is bulk emailing, but I'm definitely not doing that. I tired the alternate 587 they told me to and also the 2525 port I seen said to be the alternate, but no luck.

So what I actually want and all I need is a simple php email script that handles my emails. I'm kinda thinking along the lines of something like a hotmail, gmail, or yahoo email account without all the bells and whistles.

I'm trying to get away from paying for hosting and the email is the last thing to get setup independently. I don't want to use my ISP provided email simply because if you ever change providers or accounts, it changes too. I can temporarily forward my emails if I am in the process of changing ISPs, which that's what I like about the idea of being my own "everything" host.

But anywho, if anyone knows of a good email script that's free (no demo crap or trial software) that can receive, store, and send emails, please please please share!

Thanks!

[Sharley]

http://www.hmailserver.com/

It has been suggested that it be included in XAMPP, there was even a forum poll about it.

[dmphotography]

Hmm, well, I tried that one after not being able to get Mercury /32 to work and I had less luck with hMailServer than I did Mercury. I don't know if I'm just missing something or what, but I've followed the documentation on both and I think it comes down to my ISP not letting me send emails. But I can't receive them either and I'm just not sure why.

With Mercury 32, I'm able to add the account in Outlook and when I send the email, it gets hung in MercuryE when it tries to connect to the reciever's email host. It never can establish the connection.
When I send an email from a remote email account, it never shows up either. It gets loss in cyberspace somewhere and never does give my remote email a return error or anything.

Now with hMailServer, I set everything up correctly according to the documentation and I can't add the account in Outlook. It should be far easier than Mercury because of the interface, but I can't get it to do anything.

I've verified my port forwarding in my router and I've tried 25, 2525, and my ISP said the alternate was 587 and that didn't work either. I tried using the telnet command on all of those and no luck. I've come to the conclusion I wasn't meant to have an email server. Haha. Which really sucks.

[dmphotography]

P.S. What I was really hoping for was a webmail script, or do those have an email server running in the background too?

[glitzi85]

OK, just to make sure i understood everything correct:

You want to set up an Mailserver on your private Computer. This computer sits behind an router. You want to send and recieve E-Mails with this server. Right?

Then you need to do this steps:

Set up an account at your preferred DynamicDNS-Service (dyndns.org for example). If you have an fix IP from your ISP and a registered Domain this step is not necessary. In both cases you need to set the MX-Record to your IP, if you use DynamicDNS-Service you will find an option in their Webinterface you can activate.

Forward Port 25 from your Router to your Server. Open up Port 25 in your Server Firewall if you have one.

Now you have to configure your Mailserver. He needs to know the domain he have to collect mails for. Just work with the Documentation of hMailserver: http://www.hmailserver.com/documentatio ... figuration
Your Domain Name in the Domains & Accounts Part and the Public host name would be the same.

To configure the other stuff, i need to install the hMailServer here, that will take a while. I will continue when I've done this.

glitzi

PS: Most Mailservers do not provide an Webmail Interface. The only Server i know is Microsofts Exchange Server. But setting up an Webmail script is very simple.

[glitzi85]

OK, it is very simple. Just add your DynDNS-Account as a Domain, add an Account and use this account within Outlook. Make sure you activate SMTP Verification, otherwise your E-Mails will not be accepted.

glitzi

[dmphotography]

Well I sure don't want to spell it all out again, but here's a link to how I tried setting it up and explained the process: http://community.pmail.com/forums/14329/ShowThread.aspx#14329

I will try what you suggest though and see if that works. The only question is where do I set that at?

[dmphotography]

I wanted to update this topic and let everyone know I believe I've found my problem. After talking to a friend who knew quite a bit about DNS servers and etc., I believe my issue is with the reverse lookup. Since I have a Dynamic IP, I figured it's not worth the trouble of trying to get Comcast to configure the reverse lookup for my IP. Chances are, they won't do it anyways. By using Zoneedit.com as my DNS service, they have a free email redirect with my domain names and I just forward them to a hotmail account and that solves that, although I don't know how to set the return address in Hotmail.

Hopefully this helps someone else struggling or having trouble getting their email server to work because I didn't know what reverse look up meant and I didn't know it was an issue.

For a brief explination of reverse look up, it basically works the same way as your DNS service does for your domain names. If you use a service like Zoneedit.com, then they basically tell yourdomain.com equals yourIP address. A reverse look up does just the opposite. It says your IP address equals yourdomain.com. That's it in a nutshell. Why email servers require this, I do not know.

But yeah, there ya go.

If anyone has any suggestions or recommendations for good email servers, perhaps free ones for domain emails, please let me know.

Thanks!

[Izzy]

This from w4vy's recent topic which may help explain the need for a correct PTR

...but there may be other blocking forces at play like SPF (Sender Policy Framework - attempts to control forged e-mail addresses) or PTR (Pointer - Reverse DNS entry, Reject message if reverse PTR record does not match HELO host).