On Jun 21, 2000 Leigh Maxwell <leigh.maxwell@???> wrote:
> I'm new to Linux
Sorry for scolding, but first of all can you configure your mailer so that
it doesn't quadruple the size of every message needlessly by sending an
HTML alternative? Sending HTML alternatives is a bit discourteous to
other list members.
> and i have been given the task of installing exim.
How much help do you need that is exim specific, vs how much is Unix
specific?
Please note that the REAME file and the exim documentation is generally
sufficent for most Unix system administrators and experienced email
managers. I would very much suggest that you go on a Unix or Linux
adminstration course.
Generally for any installation of things distributed at source code, have
an area where you put things.
Some people create a directory
/usr/local/src
for the actual source and downloads. I do that normally, but for things
like exim which I know I will want to upgrade and have a test version of,
I have
/usr/local/exim/src
So make that directory. (mkdir -p /usr/local/exim/src)
Now most of use also create an exim user with its own UID and GID. There
is probably some graphical admin tool on your Linux system for doing that.
You can get away without doing this by listing the information for the
user "mail" later on instead of a uniq exim user.
get the latest version of exim from the ftp server. It will have an
extension like .tar.gz
Put that in our src directory.
Run
tar -zxvf exim-VERSION.tar.gz
That will extract a whole bunch of stuff into a directory
exim-VERSION
Go into that directory and printout and read the file called README.
That will tell you to create a subdirectory in that directory called Local
(that IS case senstive) and copy src/EDITME to Local/Makefile
(note that that src/EDITME will be
/usr/local/exim/src/exim-VERSION/src/EDITME if you used the structure I
listed).
Edit Local/Makefile
There are lots of decisions to make which depend on things about your
system and the role of the system you are setting up. When in doubt leave
things as defaults. But there are some things that you have to set. Do
you know about Unix filesystems? Often people want the spool directory to
be on a separate filesystem from other things.
Also in configuring you will need to set a UID and GID for the "exim
user". If you created an exim user, than make it the UID and GID for
that. If you didn't find the UID and GID for the user mail (the
graphical admin tools for administering users should show you that. If
not, just look for lines that look like
mail::NUMBER:NUMBER:otherstuff
in /etc/passwd, the first number is the UID the second is the GID
One of the things that you will have to set is the
SPOOL_DIRECTORY. Suppose you pick /var/spool/exim
make sure to make that directory owned by the exim user, so
chown mail.mail /var/spool/exim
if you picked mail as the exim user instead of creating your own.
Also do the same for /usr/local/exim (or whatever the install directory
will be).
Then
You may wish to compile the exim monitor. If so, follow the instructions
in README for that. You can probably get away with leaving all default
in.
Type
make
from within the exim-VERSION/ directory (the same directory with the
README file)
If all goes well, type
make install
(you need to be root for the last one)
The go and look at the configure file that the install will have put in
your main exim directory. You will need to make changes there.
There is some documentation in the comments of that file, but you should
also read the exim documentation. Get the postscript versions from the
ftp site and print those out.
While I have given you some tips, if you don't know anything about
Unix/Linux admin and don't know anything about how MTAs (Mail Transport
Agents) are supposed to work, you have a daunting task in front of
you. But those are very very good skills to acquire.
-j
--
Jeffrey Goldberg
Note: I am moving and changing many addresses, please see
http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/contact.html
Relativism is the triumph of convention over truth, authority over justice
