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I'm not sure I understand the whole principle behind what is needed for a mail server so I need some clarification and have some questions. I am trying to setup a mail server on my personal server which has its own static IP. The server does not have any domain associated to it. I am trying to setup a exim send-only mail server to send program fault information from some program I have to an email I own (alerts, status'). Every tutorial I look at I either need to use a smarthost, local delivery only or a domain (FQDN).

  1. Do you absolutely need a FQDN to send mail?

  2. If so, without purchasing a domain is it possible to have a public mail server?

  3. What would I need to send mail locally within the network?

user39935
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2 Answers2

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You don't necessarily need your own domain. But you either need a domain or an email account somewhere else to send the emails through.

There are many guides out there for setting up a mail server to send through a gmail account.

You can't reliably just send emails from an invalid domain, or from root@localhost because almost every spam filter will block them. Most email servers check that the from address is valid.

Locally within your own network you can do whatever you want since you control the filtering. So they can send from @myfakedomain.local addresses or whatever you want (actually you shouldn't use .local anymore, but it will work internally)

Grant
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  • Makes sense. So if I want to send emails outside of the network (ignoring the fact that some mail servers will block it) I can set the domain to anything I want? What would my resolv.conf look like? – user39935 Feb 12 '14 at 15:53
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If you haven't FQDN you have to send mail via your IPS's relay. In general ISP have relayed everything from their own network to everywhere. Most ISPs even block all other attempts to bypass their relays and send email directly.

So you have to ask your ISP about proper SMTP-relay you can use for submission. If your ISP have no SMTP-relay you always can setup smarthost relaying to the google public relay (with authorization).

Keep in mind that relays often check your messages for spam and with minimal suspicion for bulk unsolicited messaging you'll be banned.

Kondybas
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