Hi,

o1bigtenor via Dng writes:

> Greetings
>
> Started way back when when I got to the web full-time using webmail.
> Haven't ever setup an email system and AIUI it is a system - - - there are
> a lot of parts that have to work together to have everything working well.
>
> A mentor, now deceased, recommended using Claws but even that's not all
> that's needed for an email system. So - - - I'm looking for recommendations
> on what and how to setup an email system. The why you're using what you are
> is vitally important for me (as are my security and privacy).

Since you mention webmail and claws, I assume you are talking about a
mail client setup. Here's what I use:

- dma to get mail off my laptop to a smarthost (i.e. my ISP) and handle
delivery of local mail (i.e. mail addressed to user accounts on the
laptop, think "root" for one). It doesn't handle incoming mail. It
doesn't even listen to any ports, SMTP or otherwise.
Before dma, I quite happily used postfix but since I didn't need a
full-blow mailserver on my laptop I looked for something smaller.

- getmail6 to get mail from my ISP onto my laptop. This also grabs the
mail from a mail account my alma mater provides. I've configured it
so that mail older than a certain number of days is deleted on the
ISP and my alma mater's account.
Before getmail, I quite happily used fetchmail but negative comments
about its error handling/security made me switch.

- maildrop to handle stuffing incoming mail into the right Maildir. My
getmail configuration uses `MDA_external` type delivery to it. The
~/.mailfilter file control what goes where.
Before maildrop, I quite happily used procmail but I thought writing
recipes was overly complicated. Not sure maildrop is any better in
that respect though.

- mu4e to read and compose mail from within Emacs. It intergrates with
mu, which handles indexing and searching.
Before mu4e, I quite happily used gnus but its org-mode integration
left to be desired. To be explicit, moving messages between folders
would break links in my org-mode files. mu4e doesn't.

- a custom "localdrop" script to pass mail from /var/mail/$LOGNAME to
maildrop. Nothing too complicated, if you ignore the locking ;-)

     test -s /var/mail/$LOGNAME \
       && lockmail /var/mail/$LOGNAME \
       && /bin/sh -c "cat /var/mail/$LOGNAME | reformail -f0 -s maildrop && >/var/mail/$LOGNAME"

Hope this helps,
--
Olaf Meeuwissen, LPIC-2            FSF Associate Member since 2004-01-27
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