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This document outlines the steps that I have taken to set up dial up networking and qmail for a stand alone linux machine running stock redhat 5.2 with a dial up, dynamicaly asssigned ip address, ppp connection to the internet through an ISP. Note: I am not a unix expert or a mail expert. I cannot guarantee this will work for you, but it might help. Essentially none of the information presented here is original work, rather it is an attempt to organize what I have found useful in the docs, usenet posts, and mailing list archives. Credit goes to those authors entirely.

Since I expect the reader to go through FAQs and man pages for more detailed workings of these packages, I give here the bare minimum which has worked very well for me and should work for others too. So, for details please read the man pages and other docs that come with packages.

Packages I used for setting up dial-up networking on Linux machine and mail exchange with a pop/mail server.

Other packages for retreiving mails from POP servers can be found at UNC's Sunsite.

I also used fetchmail once which can also be found here.

WvDial

Its best to get wvdial*i386.rpm from web.

install the rpm file.
```
         # rpm -i wvdial*i386.rpm
```
wvdial and wvdialconf are installed in /usr/local/bin.
run wvdialconf
```
         # /usr/local/bin/wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf
```
/etc/wvdial.conf is the file where the initialization and other parameters will be installed.
You will have to add things like Phone no. Username and Password in /etc/wvdial.conf as shown.
```
         [Dialer myISP]
         Phone = 1234567
         Username = myUsername@myISP.com
         Password = myPassword
```
For use in local conditions, I added X1 in the initialization string for my GVC 33.6 Kbps modem in the file /etc/wvdial.conf. If there was X4 present, I removed it.
Now change modes of wvdial and pppd, to make them suid root. Though suid programs is not proper way , I found this to be the best and easiest way.
```
         # chmod 4755 /usr/local/bin/wvdial /usr/sbin/pppd
```

You can now invoke wvdial as a normal user.

         % /usr/local/bin/wvdial myISP

Qmail

Its ok to get qmail's rpms from memphis.edu otherwise tarball (*tar.gz) is ok.

If you've rpm, then install the binaries with ...

         # rpm -i qmail*.i386.rpm

Check where are all the files located. by default it should be /var/qmail but Qmail RPMs install files in lots of places instead eg /etc/qmail , /usr/bin etc.

Remove sendmail from the system first.

         # rpm -e sendmail

If you've a tarball, its best in my opinion. You gunzip and untar the file using command tar zxvf filename.tar.gz. You can also gunzip first and then untar. ( # gunzip qmail*tar.gz; tar xvf qmail*tar )

The INSTALL file contains detailed installation instructions. I give them in short here.

Add following to /etc/group ...


         qmail:*:2107
         nofiles:*:2108

Add the following to /etc/passwd (using 'vipw' to lock passwd file)


         alias:*:7790:2108::/var/qmail/alias:/bin/true
         qmaild:*:7791:2108::/var/qmail:/bin/true
         qmaill:*:7792:2108::/var/qmail:/bin/true
         qmailp:*:7793:2108::/var/qmail:/bin/true
         qmailq:*:7794:2107::/var/qmail:/bin/true
         qmailr:*:7795:2107::/var/qmail:/bin/true
         qmails:*:7796:2107::/var/qmail:/bin/true

alias,qmaild,qmaill,qmailp belong to nofiles group, rest 3 to qmail group.

You can change the dir where qmail will be installed from qmail-1.xx/conf-home file (where xx refers to the version. I used qmail-1.03) In my opinion its best in /var/qmail (default)
```
         # mkdir /var/qmail
```

Change dir to qmail src directory. Compile and install will be done by

         # cd dir_where_qmail_src_files_are
         # make setup check

Configure qmail for minimal setup.


         # ./config-fast localhost.localdomain

or if you have a working DNS service for your network/machine


         # ./config

Link the sendmail wrapper to /usr/lib and /usr/sbin for MUA's eg. pine, elm, mutt etc.


         # ln -s /var/qmail/bin/sendmail /usr/lib/sendmail
         # ln -s /var/qmail/bin/sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail

Add the following 'one' line to /etc/inetd.conf .
```
        smtp stream tcp nowait qmaild /var/qmail/bin/tcp-env tcp-env /var/qmail/bin/qmail-smtpd
```
The above thing should be in a single line in /etc/inetd.conf
Now give a HUP to inetd to read inetd.conf once again.
```
         # killall -HUP inetd
```

Add the following to /etc/rc.d/rc.local so that qmail is started again when rebooted.


         echo "Starting qmail ..."
         csh -cf '/var/qmail/boot/home &'

Start qmail by running /var/qmail/boot/home as follows


         # csh -f '/var/qmail/boot/home &'

Test the installation.
```
   
         # telnet 127.0.0.1 25
```
You should be able to see this line ...
```
         220 localhost.localdomain ESMTP
```
which means partially successful installation.
To allow qmail to change the "From:" line in your outgoing mail to the appropriate yourispname@isp.com you need to add three items to your environment. This is somewhat sytem dependent, but on my standard RedHat setup I added this to the ~/.bash_profile file in my home directory:
```
         MAILHOST=isp.com
         MAILUSER=yourispusername 
         MAILNAME="Your name"
         QMAILINJECT="fi" 
         export MAILHOST MAILUSER QMAILINJECT
```

or if you use c-shell, then add the following lines to ~/.login

         setenv MAILHOST "isp.com"
         setenv MAILUSER "yourispusername"
         setenv MAILNAME "Your name"
         setenv QMAILINJECT "fi"

Ucspi-tcp & serialmail

As earlier for qmail, rpm's are ok but tarball is best.

usually they install in /usr/local and assume qmail lies in /var/qmail. installation for both is pretty easy and the following steps are common.

compile them (it is assumed that you have extracted the tar file and have changed dir to where the src files are untar-ed.)
```
 
        # make
```
Install and check
```
  
         # make setup check
```

->->-> Read the instructions for configuring system for offline mailer.

getpop3

Extract the files from tarball and go to the dir where getpop3's src files are present. The binary getpop3 will be installed in /usr/local/bin.

Configure the installation using autoconf.
```
         # ./configure
```

Compile and install


         # make depend
         # make
         # make install

Getpop3 when run with -A (this option only applicable when run as root) checks all the users' home dir for file .getpop3rc (which should have perms of 600) and fetches mail for them from their designated POP server.

A typical ~/.getpop3rc looks like ...


         [pop3host] [pop3account] [pop3passwd]

Note: The ~/.getpop3rc should not have any permissions to group and others. ie mode 600 only.

Offline mailing

To add offline outbound mailing, we need qmail package, maildirsmtp (part of serialmail package) and tcpclient (part of ucspi-tcp package)

Make a directory (using maildirmake)where outgoing mail will stay put till connection is up. mkdir will not work here.
```
         # /var/qmail/bin/maildirmake ~alias/pppdir
         # chown -R alias ~alias/pppdir
```
Put
```
         ./pppdir/
```
in ~alias/.qmail-ppp-default. Donot forget ./ or / .
In file /var/qmail/control/virtualdomains, put
```
   
         :alias-ppp
```
If you send a mail to non-local recepients, the mail will be saved/stored to ~alias/pppdir/new and will wait there till you connect.
Suppose electra and venus are local users and they have accounts on isp1.com as janus and isp2.com as psyche respectively. You may wish to redirect all mails sent to janus@isp1.com to local user electra. Then you need to masquerade electra as janus@isp1.com
If you want to masquerade your local name with you ISP address, put the following in also in /var/qmail/control/virtualdomains.
```
         janus@isp1.com:alias-isp1
         psyche@isp2.com:alias-isp2
```
Also, put
```
         &electra
```
in ~alias/qmail-isp1-janus and
```
         &venus
```
in ~alias/qmail-isp2-psyche
Add all the domains like isp1.com and isp2.com to the file /var/qmail/control/rcpthosts
Give a HUP to qmail-send to re-read /var/qmail/control/rcpthosts
```
         # killall -HUP qmail-send
```

This will enable mails from local machine to janus@isp1.com to be treated as local and delivered locally. ie. mails to janus will be delivered to electra and mails to psyche@isp2.com will be delivered to venus.

Automation of the mail exchange

To automate the mail exchange, create the file /etc/ppp/ip-up.local. ip-up is shell script which is executed by ppp when a connection is established. Make it executable (mode 755).

My ip-up looks like this ...


          #!/bin/sh -f
          #
          export PATH="/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin"
          echo `date "+%a %b %d %H:%M:%S :"` CONNECT: $4 >> /var/log/ppplog
          # get mails from POP server
          getpop3 -q -A
          exit1=$?
          # send mails to MAIL server once mails have been fetched
          # $4 is the ip address we are assigned.
          maildirsmtp ~alias/pppdir alias-ppp-  isp.com `hostname`
          exit2=$?
          if [ "$exit1" = "0" -a "$exit2" = "0" ] ; then
          wall "Mail exchange finished for this session." ;
          else
          wall "Could not exchange mail properly in this session.";
          fi

Replace isp.com with another mail relay or ISP mailhost.

Similar to ip-up there is a shell script which is executed when the connection goes down. Create /etc/ppp/ip-down.local and make it mode 755.

My ip-down.local looks like this ...


         #!/bin/sh -f
         echo `date "+%a %b %d %H:%M:%S :"` DISCONNECT: >> /var/log/ppplog

This can be used to log up-time and connect time for costing.

|| I am.. || I like.. || I belong to.. || I lived.. || I connect.. || HOME ||

Updated: 20010529