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Like most UNIX systems, Linux provides a number of software packages for
using electronic mail. E-mail on your system can either be local (that is,
you only mail other users on your system), or networked (that is, you mail,
using either TCP/IP or UUCP, users on other machines on a network).
E-mail software usually consists of two parts: a mailer and a
transport. The mailer is the user-level software which is used to
actually compose and read e-mail messages. Popular mailers include
elm and mailx. The transport is the low-level software
which actually takes care of delivering the mail, either locally or remotely.
The user never sees the transport software; they only interact with the
mailer. However, as the system administrator, it is important to understand
the concepts behind the transport software and how to configure it.
The most popular transport software for Linux is Smail. This software
is easy to configure, and is able to send both local and remote TCP/IP
and UUCP e-mail. The more powerful sendmail transport is used on
most UNIX systems, however, because of its complicated setup mechanism,
many Linux systems don't use it.
The Linux Mail HOWTO gives more information on the available
mail software for Linux and how to configure it on your system. If you
plan to send mail remotely, you'll need to understand either TCP/IP or
UUCP, depending on how your machine is networked (see Sections 5.3
and 5.4). The UUCP and TCP/IP documents listed in
Appendix A should be of help there.
Most of the Linux mail software can be retrieved
via anonymous FTP from sunsite.unc.edu in the directory
/pub/Linux/system/Mail.
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Matt Welsh
mdw@sunsite.unc.edu