Thanks, I've contacted tech support at Roadrunner.com and await their answers.

I'm brand new to trying to run my own email server. I have an account with my normal ISP (Roadrunner.com). I, also have two websites with emails associated with them through a different international large ISP (1&1). All my mail is funneled in and out through my ISP. My websites, Yahoo, Gmail, and Bigfoot.com all forward mail to my Roadrunner.com ISP. However, going out it all goes through Roadrunner.com.

I travel a lot and use a netbook and/or HTC smartphone all over the world where ever I can login. Also, I run a newsletter that goes out to about 1500 people at a time regardless of where I am. I've run into problems sending mail out.

I'm wanting to set up a personal mail server that can be run occasionally when I want to turn it on, but use my normal current methods of email most of the time. I have the DNS information for both my ISP and my websites.

If I set up PMail and use "localhost" as my DNS I don't think it will be seen as acceptable to the Internet. My thought is that I need to use the DNS information I have, say, for my websites so the outgoing mail looks as if it is coming from them and so return email can be directed correctly through them back to me.

How does this work? Do I simply put the website DNS in the PMail program will so it go out as if from my websites? How will any limits on size, attachments, etc. imposed by my website ISP affect what I send from PMail?

I would greatly appreciate being directed to primary preschool level instructions for green newbies on how to do all this.

If I understand this correctly you want to use Mercury to send out messages to individual recipients and your newsletter list (as your ISP's mail server has some restrictions that aren't suitable for you), but you will still use their server for all incoming mail. If you use Mercury for outgoing mail with direct delivery (using the MercuryE module) you will indeed not be subject to restrictions from your ISP for size, attachments etc., but you may still run into restrictions imposed by the server handling the recipient's account, of course.

To be able to do this you will need a fixed IP address, and your ISP mustn't be blocking port 25 for outgoing SMTP traffic from your IP. The IP address should furthermore preferably have something called reverse DNS or PTR record that is set by your ISP. If possible it should resolve to the hostname of your server. If these things are OK you can proceed with the settings.

You should add a special hostname (A record) in the DNS for your domain for the server, let's say listserv.yourdomain.com, and set this as the Internet name in Mercury. This DNS record should of course point to your fixed IP address.

In Pmail use your ordinary email address as sender, and set the LAN IP of the server as outgoing SMTP server.

In MercuryS configuration, Connection control at least the 3 first checkboxes should be checked. This is important as you will otherwise risk being blocked for relaying spam. You can then either always use authentication or add your local IP range in the listbox above Connection control with settings to allow connection and relaying. If you need to use the server for sending from other locations authentication should be used. Please read the help pages in Mercury about relaying and authentication.

To use the mailing list facilities in Mercury please read about it in the help pages or the PDF manual, and come back if there are any questions.

I'm afraid this is by no means complete instructions, but it could perhaps be a starting point.

/Rolf

I'm way to untrained to understand your initial comments.

First, let me know how to determine which ISP I'm dealing with when I use Murcury. Thunderbird, my normal email program uses smtp-server.roadrunner.com and pop-server.roadrunner.com for normal mail. I've tried to find a DNS for them, but can't find anything. I do see that my normal email uses port 110. How do I find out if port 25 is blocked or not?

I went to my host for my websites and found the DNS for my websites. When input they point back to the name server at my host and my specific website. How do I find what to use in the set up?

Second, by using the DNS for my website, but using it from my laptop occasionally, does that creat any problems?

I can and have set up subdomains using this format subdomain.domain.com. Do I need to set up a special one to Mercury?

From your line. . "In PMail use your ordinary email address as sender, and set up the LAN IP of he server as outgoing SMTP server". . . I get the idea that I should use my website email (myname.mydomain.com) as sender and the DNS number for my website as the LAN IP. Is that correct?

 Thanks for ou help.

The ISP we are concerned with is the one that provides Internet connection to the place where Mercury will be running, Roadrunner presumably. I think the best would be to simply call their helpdesk and ask about fixed IP address, port 25, and reverse DNS.

To find out the IP address that you presently connect from you can browse to for instance www.myip.net.

For the domain part you will be creating a new entry for the Mercury server, it won't create any problems for previously existing domain resources. You will with the right settings be able to connect to the Mercury server from your stationary computer or from your laptop.

If you normally use Thunderbird you can continue doing so with Mercury. Create a new account in Thunderbird with your ordinary email address as sender (me@mydomain.com) and set the Mercury server as SMTP server. On a workstation in your local network you should probably enter the local IP address of the server, but on the laptop, that will be connecting from the Internet, you should use the newly created hostname. You won't be receiving any mail with this account, it will only be used for sending. (And you can continue to use the Roadrunner servers for the old account, so no changes required there.)

Sorry if this is a bit much to digest at one time, but running a mail server requires some knowledge about networking and domain handling as well. Start out with talking to your ISP, though, so we know if that part will be any problem.

/Rolf