Questions on finishing up Exim install

[Anonymous]

First of all, I’d like to thank Joel for the great resource here.

I’m approaching the end (I think!) of what’s been an on again/off again install Exim/SpamAssassin/ClamAV/Amavis on an Xserve, in preparation for a switch from EIMS (Eudora Internet Mail Server) currently running on an old G3. I’ve followed the wonderful articles here, but not having done this before, I’m not sure if the situation I’m in is typical, or if we’re in for some additional issues.

I’m hoping that if I describe the situation someone may have some good pointers, and also that the process of describing this will make things a bit more clear in my own mind…

The situation is this – my client’s connection to the internet is via ISDN. Their ISP has set the ISDN router to forward mail traffic to the machine (an old G3, running EIMS) at 192.168.1.2. What I’m doing is setting up Exim on a new Xserve at 192.168.1.1. Once it’s up and working, we’re going to switch the router to forward all mail to 192.168.1.1.

I’ve got all the programs mentioned above, Exim, SpamAssassin, ClamAV and Amavis, up and running. While on site the other day, I successfully sent a couple of messages through, using the IP address instead of the domain. A couple of questions are still worrying me as I get close (I think) to wrapping this up.

The first question has to do the the Xserve’s canonical name. The comments in the configure file state: “Specify your host’s canonical name here”. As far as I know, this machine does not have a cannonical name (and neither does the G3 that is working as the current server). Is this possible? If so, what’s the correct info to put here. My guess was the IP address, but that was no more than a guess.

The second is, what’s the best way to test this setup remotely? I’ve tried using Mail from within the terminal, and get log entries like this:

2003-03-11 20:59:20 HBM5IW-000222-00 <= admin@Xserve H=localhost (Xserve) [127.0.0.1] P=esmtp S=476 id=200303120159.h2C1xK6Z002664@Xserve
2003-03-11 20:59:20 HBM5IW-000222-00 localhost [127.0.0.1]: Connection refused
2003-03-11 20:59:20 HBM5IW-000222-00 == hugo@Xserve R=amavis T=amavis defer (61): Connection refused

and

2003-03-11 23:30:59 HBMCJM-0002A6-00 ** hugo@Xserve: Unrouteable address

Where “admin” is the username I’ve logged in with, and “Xserve” is just the name of the server, and “hugo” is the user I’ve sent mail to. “Xserve” is obviously not a part of the domain this machine will serving – am I missing some crucial setting here? Is there an obvious way for me to test this remotely, while the current EIMS server is still running on another machine?

Obviously, once I know this install is really up and running I’m going to want to switch it out with the old EIMS server – but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Many thanks for any advice you can give, and please excuse the long post.

[Anonymous]

Thank you again Joel. I’ll keep moving forwards, and we’ll see what happens.

Hugo

[Author]

Posts