Mail Setup

Of course it's possible it's a server after all. I don't know of any tutorials online but the documentation that came on the server install disk explains exactly how to do it.

The basics steps involve enabling mail for the accounts in Workgroup manager and then setting up the Mail service in Server Admin. It's actually very straight forward. You also need to have DNS services setup to point to your server but if you're already running a web server you should know how to configure that already.

Rather than us writing a tutorial here, why don't you just ask questions about what you don't understand or what isn't working and well try and help you out.

For 'Domain Name' you would put in the main domain name (if you operate more than one domain) you operate under. For 'Host Name' you would put the domain name preceded by the host name for the server.

For example, although I host many domains, my main domain is 'pixelpointstudios.com' so in 'Domain Name' I have 'pixelpointstudios.com' set.

For the purposes of mail I want the mail server to identify itself to the outside world, in received headers, as 'mail.pixelpointstudios.com'so that is what I put in the 'Host Name' field.

If your domain is 'zapto.org' then use that. If you have set as your MX server in DNS 'mx6.zapto.org' then I would use that as the 'Host Name'.

You said you run a web server, what is the domain name for that?

Okay, I can see your web server at 'mx6.zapto.org'.

Looking at the DNS records for 'mx6.zapto.org' I can see that the name servers for that domain are hosted by 'no-ip.com'. Do you have access to the DNS records being hosted at 'no-ip.com'? How did you set 'mx6.zapto.org' to point to the IP address '66.229.58.193'? Was this set by your service provider?

Your DNS records:

mx6.zapto.org. IN A 66.229.58.193
mx6.zapto.org. IN MX <-- missing info

zapto.org. IN SOA nf1.no-ip.com. hostmaster.no-ip.com. 2005424071 90 120 604800 60

193.58.229.66.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR c-66-229-58-193.hsd1.ca.comcast.net.
c-66-229-58-193.hsd1.ca.comcast.net. IN A 66.229.58.193

To have a properly setup mail server you need to have DNS records, including proper A, MX and PTR records for the IP addresses and domain names involved. If you don't then some mail servers may refuse to accept mail sent from you.

You seem to have everything except an MX record. You could set it as simply 'mx6.zapto.org' as long as the mail server and web server are on the same box and are reachable by the IP address '66.229.58.193' or you could set it to 'mac.mx6.zapto.org' which appears to be the host name you've set on the server. If you use 'mac.mx6.zapto.org' then also set the MX record to 'mac.mx6.zapto.org' and a corresponding A record for 'mac.mx6.zapto.org' that points to the IP address '66.229.58.193'.

On the server under Mail service you would set 'Domain Name' as 'mx6.zapto.org' and the 'Host Name' as 'mac.mx6.zapto.org'.

You can't setup DNS on your own server to do this as the rest of the internet will not see those DNS records. They will only see the records hosted by the servers designated by 'no-ip.com'.

Great, I can see that now when I query your DNS.

mx6.zapto.org. IN MX 5 mx6.zapto.org.

Your email address will 'USERACCOUNT@mx6.zapto.org' where 'USERACCOUNT' is the short names of the accounts you have setup in Workgroup Manager.

Paste the entire error message you are getting otherwise I don't know what the error is.

Have you tried sending email out to your Gmail account through the server?

Also, did you enable email for the user account in Workgroup Manager?

Ah! This could be a couple of settings.

In Server Admin, select Settings>Relay. Put a check in 'Accept SMTP relays only from hosts and networks:' Click on the '+' and add your IP address. Now, select Settings>Advanced>Hosting. Click on the '+' for 'Local Host Aliases' and enter your domain name 'mx6.zapto.org'. Save your settings and restart the Mail service.

Now try again.

Most of the settings in your mail clients, Mail or Outlook or whatever, you pretty self-explanatory.

General Info:
Email address: andy@mx6.zapto.org

For incoming server:
Account Name: USERACCOUNT as set in Workgroup Manager (andy)
Password: PASSWORD as set in Workgroup Manager
IMAP or POP (Incoming server): mx6.zapto.org
Authentication: as set in Server Admin (Mail supports CRAM-MD5 (encrypted) for IMAP or APOP (encrypted) for POP, Outlook only supports Login (not encrypted) for IMAP or Clear (not encrypted) for POP.

For outgoing server:
Account Name: USERACCOUNT as set in Workgroup Manager (andy)
Password: PASSWORD as set in Workgroup Manager
SMTP (Outgoing server): mx6.zapto.org
Authentication: as set in Server Admin (Mail supports CRAM-MD5 (encrypted), Outlook supports Login (not encrypted).

Leave the port numbers at their defaults.