The new Virtual Machine is finished and configured. The last step is the installation of the guest operative system inside the VM. From now on, this will be the same as installing a new OS on any real computer.

02:59 - Let’s starting the installation of Sabayon linux by selecting the Virtual Machine Sabayon on the VirtualBox  left panel. Click the button Start on the menu above.	A new window will show up. That’s the window of the new Virtual Machine where Sabayon will be installed. A pop up window with information  will show up. It’s self explanatory. Read it and activate the check box “Do not show this message again”. It explains how the mouse and keyboard works between the VM and the real computer. When working on your windows desktop click Right Ctrl key and mouse and keyboard will be active on your VM. Click again Right Ctrl and the control of the mouse and keyboard will be passed again to your windows desktop.
Another information may also appear. Read it and activate the check box “Do not show this message again”.	A warning window can also appear. Read it and click OK.
03:01 - The menu to chose the installation type will show up. Select with the arrow keys the “Start graphical Installation” option and press Enter.	03:02 - The installation process will start.
03:04 - First screen. Click Next.	03:05 - Chose your keyboard and click Next.
03:05 - Chose the desktop type. Select Sabayon Linux KDE Desktop and click Next.	03:06 - Services configuration. Accept the default values and click Next.
03:06 - Disk partitioning setup. Select automatically partition and click Next.	03:07 - Say Yes to this warning. Don’t worry. You are working in the Virtual Machine.
03:08 - Automatic partitioning. Select “Remove all partitions on this System” and click next. Say yes to the warning box that will show up.	03:08 - Disk Setup. Information about the partitions to be created. Click Next. The next screen will show the boot loader configuration. Accept the default values and click Next. Click Here to see the screen with the Boot Loader Configuration.
03:09 - Network Configuration. Accept the default values and click Next. On the next screen select your time zone and click ext.	03:14 - Set Root Password. Type the root password. Type the name , username and password for user that will use the system usually. On my case my username will be myself. This will be the user that will use the system for normal work. Click Next. On the next screen click Next to start the installation process.
03:15 - The installation will start.	03:34 - Around 20 minutes later the installation will be done. Click Reboot.
03:36 - The system will reboot.	03:38 - Click continue without desktop acceleration.
03:39 - Click the arrow pointing to the right to login.	03:40 - We are in. But we are still running from the Live CD (our ISO file mounted when we were configuring the VM). The user is Sabayonuser, the default username when running the Live CD. You can already have a feeling of everything.
03:42 - The KDE Menu. From here you can access and control everything on the system. Let’s try Firefox.	03:54 - Ok… play a little bit and shutdown the system. Click on the KDE button and select log out. Select Turn Off Computer.
04:01 - On the main window of VirtualBox, select on the left panel your VM Sabayon and click on Settings button. Select CD/DVD-ROM and instead of ISO Image File, activate the Host CD/DVD Drive. This will disable the ISO file used to install the system and will enable the CD/DVD drive to be mounted on the VM. Click OK. Click the Start button to start our Virtual machine.	The Boot loader will show up and Sabayon will start to load. This time the system will be running from the Virtual Hard drive.
04:07 - Login screen. Put your username and password and press enter. My username is myself and password is :)). The username and password were setup before (see time 03:14 above). You can also login as root. Type root on the username field and then type the root’s password. It’s not very wise though.	04:08 - Here we are. The  system is running. A complete linux installation running inside windows Vista with the help of VirtualBox. Play around and have fun.
04:14 - Firefox is running. KDE file manager is also running and the shell as well for the ones that like to do things the hard way.	04:17 - I’ve inserted a DVD disk in the DVD reader and Sabayon has detected the DVD like Windows and asks what we want to do. I have selected “Open in new window” and clicked OK. The KDE file manager will run showing the contents of the DVD. See image Here.
04:22 - SMPlayer is a media player that can run any kind of multimedia files.	04:24 - Close all applications. Right click on any place on the desktop and select Log Out “username”. On the next screen select Tur Off Computer. You’re done… Have fun with your new system…

Now that the virtual machine is done, we need to make a few adjustments to the “hardware” of this “new computer”.

On the main window of VirtualBox we have two panels. The left panel contains all the virtual machines the you have created. The right panel shows the “hardware” characteristics of the virtual machine selected on the left panel. These characteristics are the ones that we are going to change and adjust to “build” our virtual computer.

To start the “hardware” adjustments of the virtual machine just select it on the left panel and click on the Settings button above.	A new window will show up. On the left panel are the devices to be configured and the configurations are made on the right panel. The very first adjustments to be done are the General configurations where you can adjust the Base Memory Size (RAM assigned to the VM) and the Video Memory Size (memory assigned to the virtual graphics card of the VM). On my VM I have assigned 519 Mb of RAM to the VM and 128Mb to the virtual graphics card.
Still inside the General configurations select Advanced. Here the Boot Order of the VM can be changed the same way it would be done on a real computer changing the Boot Order on the BIOS. Normally it’s not necessary to change anything here.	Next there is the Hard Disks configuration. There isn’t any need to change anything here because it was done during the initial wizard to create the VM. CD/DVD-ROM - Here you can mount the CD/DVD Drive on the VM putting a check on the Mount CD/DVD Drive check box. When starting the VM the CD/DVD/Drive will be assigned to the VM.
To mount the CD/DVD Drive there are two options. Mount the real CD/DVD Drive or mount an ISO image file. The former mounts and assigns the computer’s CD/DVD Drive on the VM. The latter allows to mount any ISO image file as a CD/DVD Drive.	We are going to chose the option Mount ISO Image File. We have already downloaded an ISO image file of the Sabayon Linux distribution on the part one of this tutorial. After choosing the ISO Image File option, click on the folder icon similar to this one: This will evokes the Virtual Media Manager to select the ISOs to be mounted.
The Virtual Media Manager will open. I have already here to ISO image files but none of them is the one the I need to install the Sabayon Linux.	Click the button Add to select and add an ISO image file to the Virtual Media Manager.
Got to the location on your hard drive where you have downloaded the Sabayon Linux image file. Select it and click Open.	The ISO image file of Sabayon Linux will be listed now on the Virtual Media Manager. Select it with the mouse and click on the button Select on the lower right corner.
You’ll be automatically transported to the settings window of the Sabayon Virtual Machine. Click OK. We’re again on the main window of VirtualBox. With Sabayon selected on the left panel we can see on the right panel all the configurations of our new Sabayon Virtual Machine	The image above shows the configurations of mine Sabayon VM done until now. Click again on the Settings button.
Click the Audio device button.	Activate the Enable Audio check box. This will allow the VM to have a virtual sound card. The configurations shown above have worked just perfect for me. If after running your VM you don’t have sound, just come here again and try other options.
Click the USB button and activate the Enable USB Controller. Any USB device being used by the guest OS running on the Virtual Machine will not be accessible by the host OS.	Click OK and we’ll be back to the main window of VirtualBox

On part 4 of this tutorial we will finally  install the new operative system Sabayon Linux.

Apple MacBook Pro MB604LL/A 17-Inch Laptop (2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, Slot Loading SuperDrive)

Apple MacBook Pro MB604LL/A 17-Inch Laptop

Apple MacBook Pro MB604LL/A 17-Inch Laptop is thinner and lighter than its predecessor as well as stronger and more durable. But Apple didn’t stop innovating with the body’s design. The MacBook Pro also includes a new high-resolution LED-backlit widescreen with a 1920-by-1200-pixel resolution, a greater color gamut for more vibrant colors, and a 700:1 contrast ratio that makes whites brighter and blacks blacker. It also includes the new glass trackpad that does away with the trackpad button (for larger tracking area) and features Apple’s Multi-Touch technology. And the non-removable battery lasts up to 8 hours on a single charge and can be recharged up to 1000 times–compared with only 200 to 300 times for typical notebooks.

It’s pre-loaded with Apple’s Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system, which enables easy backup of your most important data via Time Machine, a redesigned desktop that helps eliminate clutter. It also comes with the iLife ‘09 suite of applications–including the latest versions of iPhoto, iMovie, and Garageband–and the newest version of the fast-loading Safari web browser. Other hardware features include a 320 GB hard drive, 4 GB of installed RAM (which can be upgraded to 8 GB), an 8x combo Superdrive (for burning dual-layer DVDs as well as CDs), built-in Gigabit Ethernet for high-speed networking, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate), FireWire 800 port, Mini DisplayPort video output (for DVI and VGA connections), and an ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot for expansion solutions such as 3G cellular networking.

If I could have one like this I could travel to the moon. My modest laptop is  felling so shy right now.

Full specifications and orders here:

Apple MacBook Pro MB604LL/A 17-Inch Laptop (2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, Slot Loading SuperDrive)

The layout of the template in use lost some formating. I need to see what wrong with it… other than that, everything seems to be ok.

Trying now to get used to the new interface on the back-end.

“It does not contain a media player and it does not associate file-types. With this package installed you will be able to use any media player, limited only by the players’ capabilities, to play all movies and video clips. Streaming video is supported in several formats in all popular web browsers. Users of VCP have the ability to choose what is installed and where to install it using the public redistributable. After installation you can select to remove specific portions without removing the entire package. You can also re-add the removed items at any time.”

Software Home Page

Download Codecs 5.0.7

Run VirtualBox like any other software. It should be under Start > Sun xVM VirtualBox > VirtualBox

Start VirtualBox	This image on the left is the interface of VirtualBox. i have already a few guests OS installed. Your VM (virtual machine) is empty. To install our new linux system that we have just downloaded, we have to create a virtual machine for it. Just click on the button New and we will start the process of creating a brand new virtual machine.
First step - Click Next Always read the dialog boxes… yep… it’s a stupid comment but there are a lot of people that don’t do that.	Give a name to your VM Give a name your VM. Name it according the OS you are about to install. This will make things easier later on when you have several Guests OS installed. You have also to chose the type of OS to be installed. based on that choice , VirtualBox will pre-configure a few things for you. Click Next
Define the RAM to your VM Decide the amount of RAM that your VM will have. Based on your previous choice VirtualBox recommends 256MB of memory. Click Next	Chose a virtual Hard Drive Now it’s time to chose a virtual hard drive. You still don’t have any. Click New to create one.
New Virtual Disk Wizard First step to create a new virtual hard drive. Click Next	Type of Virtual Hard Drive Chose the type of virtual drive: Dynamic or Fixed. Dynamic - VirtualBox will contract or expand the size of the files used as virtual drive as needed. Fixed - VirtualBox will use always a file with the same size. If in the future you install lots of software inside your VM and you reach the limit of the virtual drive, you can’t do anything about it. With Dynamic drive you will not have that problem but if you chose a drive with 8GB and you don’t install any kind of software, you will have a few Gbytes of wasted space. With time you’ll learn the best option. Click Next.
Define the size of VirtualHard drive It’s time to decide the size of your virtual hard drive. Virtualbox recommends 8GB. If you have that space available accept that value. If not chose half of that value. Give a name to the file that will be saved on your computer as a virtual hard drive. To keep things organized give the same name that you have given to your VM on the beginning. Click Next.	Virtual Hard Drive created Your new hard drive is created. Click Finish to complete the operation.
Chose the VM hard drive We’re back to step 5. Chose your recently created hard drive as the hard disk of your virtual machine. Click Next.	Final step - VM is finished Your new virtual machine is concluded. Click Finish.

On the next post we will be ajusting our new virtual machine.

Have you ever wondered about having two Operative Systems installed on your PC running simultaneously? It’s extremely easy to do and very handy.In this illustrated tutorial I am gonna show how to install Linux Sabayon inside Windows Vista Home Basic.

Linux Sabayon is a flavor of linux based on the Gentoo distribution. It’s an amazing distribution and the GUI is awesome. Just to give you a taste of it look at this image and video.

Linux Sabayon running inside Windows Vista
	Video showing Linux Sabayon running

Before the advent of virtual machines software, we had only one possibility: dual boot systems. Dual Boot has some advantages but has the inconvenient of while you are running one system, the other is off. Virtual machines solved that problem. With them you can have your main system running and install other Operative Systems inside virtual machines. This allows you to run and test a big variety of systems without messing with partitions.

How about the new shareware just downloaded from the Internet? You could install the old Windows 98 or Windows 2000 in a virtual machine and then test the shareware without jeopardizing your main system. The possibilities are endless.

Install VirtualBox

Just a few notes:

• My computer is a Dell computer with 2GB of RAM and Windows Vista Home Basic installed. This is the HOST

• OS.After the installation of VirtualBox, each operative system that you install inside it, they will the GUEST OS.

Go to VirtualBox website and download the software. Inside the download section you will find several versions. Download the appropriated version for you. For me was the x86 version.

Install it like you install any other software.

Download Linux Sabayon

The first thing that you have to do is to download the Linux Sabayon distribution. Go to the Sabayon website.

Sabayon website

Chose Download bellow Enjoy Sabayon

Go to one of the mirrors to chose one version of Sabayon. I have used an mirror from Denmark. Chose this file: SabayonLinux-x86-3.4.miniEdition.iso and start your download.

Chose download mirror	Chose file to download
Chose Save File	locate a place to save the file

Start the download

If you are a smoker, lit a cigarette… it Will take a while to download the file.

Come back soon for part II of this tutorial on How to install linux sabayon inside windows Vista.

If you press F2 when more than one file is selected in Windows Explorer,
only one file—the active file—gets a text field for you to type in. Nothing
will happen to the other selected files, at least not yet.

The active file is important, since its name is used as a template to rename
the other selected files. If the file marked as active is not the one you want to
use, hit Esc, and then hold the Ctrl key while clicking another file. If the
new file was highlighted, it will become deselected—in this case, just Ctrlclick
the file once more to reselect it. Then, press F2 again to show the text
field.
Rename the active file as desired, and press Enter when you’re done. The
active file keeps its new name, and then Explorer assigns the same name—
plus a number, in parenthesis—to all the other files.

Bellow table shows what happens when you rename files this way.

Although Explorer doesn’t show you a preview of your new filenames, you
can undo a multiple rename operation as easily as a single rename operation
by pressing Ctrl-Z once for each file that was renamed. Want to undo a single
rename of 17 files? You’ll need to press Ctrl-Z 17 times.

Using the Command Prompt
An alternative is to use the ren command (see Chapter 9), either directly from
the Command Prompt (cmd.exe), or from a batch file or PowerShell script.
First, use the cd command, also explained in Chapter 9, to change the working
directory to the folder containing the files you wish to rename. For
example, type:
cd c:\stuff
to change to the C:\stuff folder. If the folder name contains a space, enclose
it in quotation marks, like this:
cd “c:\Progam Files\stuff”
Next, use the ren command to rename the file; the general syntax is:
ren source destination
where both source and destination can be any combination of permissible
characters and wildcards. Two wildcards are allowed: an asterisk (*), which isused to match any number of characters, and a question mark (?), which
is used to match only a single character. For example:
Rename a single file
ren oldfile.txt newfile.txt
Change the extension of all .txt files to .doc
ren *.txt *.doc
Rename the first part of a filename without changing the extension
ren document.* documentation.*
Remove the extensions of all files in the folder
ren *.* *.
Change the first letter of all files in a folder to “b”
ren *.* b*.*
Add a zero in front of numbered chapter files (note the quotation marks)
ren “chapter ??.wpd” “chapter0??.wpd”
Rename all files with an “s” in the fourth position so that a “t” appears there
instead
ren ???s*.* ???t*.*
Truncate the filenames of all files in the folder so that only the first four characters
are used
ren *.* ????.*
Now, using wildcards takes a bit of practice and patience. The more you do
it, the better intuitive sense you’ll have of how to phrase a rename operation.
To make things simpler, try issuing several successive ren commands
instead of trying to squeeze all your changes into a single step.
If a naming conflict occurs, the ren command never overwrites a file. For
example, if you try to rename Lisa.txt to Bart.txt, and there’s already
another file called Bart.txt, ren just displays an error.

E-mail messages are generated either by an automated process, such as a
form processor on a Web page or an automated notification system, or by an
MUA (mail user agent) controlled by an end user. Messages are delivered
through one of two methods to the software performing the MTA (mail
transfer agent) function on a server:

IN THIS CHAPTER
Running a Mail Server
SMTP—The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is a network-based protocol that allows for
transmission of messages between systems.
Local IPC—Inter-process communications are often used instead of SMTP when transferring
a message between programs within a system.
Upon receiving a message, the MTA places it in a queue to be processed by an MDA (mail delivery
agent). Mail delivery agents come in two varieties:
Local MDAs—Deliver messages to mailboxes on the local server. Simple versions copy
messages directly to a specified mailbox, while complex implementations can alter messages
or delivery parameters based on user-specified rules.
Remote MDAs—Deliver messages over the network to remote servers. Full remote
MDAs use DNS (the Domain Name System) to determine the mail exchanger hosts for
recipient addresses and deliver to the best one available for each. Simple remote MDAs
(sometimes also called “null clients”) forward messages to a central server to continue the
delivery process. Most remote MDAs are capable of either method and will act as configured
by the administrator that performed the configuration.

You will often see the term MTA used in reference to the software that performs both
MTA and MDA functions. This is a carry-over from older designs that did not separate
the functions and is still fairly accurate given the fact that most mail server implementations include a
minimum of an MTA, remote MDA, and basic local MDA.

When a message reaches its destination server, it is written to the user’s mailbox by the local MDA.
From that point, the message may be viewed by the user using one of three methods:
Direct access to the mailbox—An MUA (mail user agent) with access to the mailbox
file, directly or through a network file system, can read messages from the disk and display
them for the user. This is generally a console or Web mail application running on the
server.
Downloaded to a workstation for local viewing—Most mail users use POP3 (Post
Office Protocol, version 3) to download messages to their local computers and view them
in applications such as Evolution or Balsa. By default, messages are removed from the
server during this process (similar to when you get your “snail mail” from the mailbox).
Accessed interactively over the network—Most clients also support viewing messages
while they are still on the server, through IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol).
Unlike POP3, this protocol enables users to access multiple folders on their servers and
also allows them to access their messages from anywhere. However, this also creates a
heavier burden on the server because it must process (and store) everything that the user
decides to keep. Most Web mail applications use IMAP as their backend protocol for
accessing mailboxes; this eliminates the need for direct access to the mail files and makes
it easier to split functions between systems.

About the System and the Software Used
The mail server configuration described in this chapter is based on the Exim mail transfer agent.
Along with Exim, several other components are added for managing the server and checking
e-mail contents for spam and viruses:
Exim (http://www.exim-mta.org/)—An MTA written and designed by Philip
Hazel at the University of Cambridge, with contributions from many people around the
world. The version referred to in this chapter includes the Exiscan-ACL patches
(http://duncanthrax.net/exiscan-acl/) packages from Tom Kistner. This
patch allows content scanning from within Exim. Because this patch is integrated with
Exim, its features are considered part of Exim for the purposes of this chapter.
Maildrop (http://www.flounder.net/~mrsam/maildrop/)—A local MDA that
is part of the Courier MTA package, but is also available as a standalone program. It is
used in this configuration to allow the use of advanced features, such as mailbox quotas
and server-side message sorting.
Courier IMAP and POP (http://www.courier-mta.org/imap/)—Like Maildrop,
these are parts of the Courier MTA that are also available separately. They were chosen for
their easy installation, good performance, and compatibility with the Maildir format mail
directories.
ClamAV (www.clamav.net)—An open source virus scanner that detects more than
20,000 viruses, worms, and Trojans. It uses a virus pattern database to identify viruses
and includes a program named freshclam that handles updating the database automatically.
Like SpamAssassin, ClamAV includes a daemon (clamd), a client (clamdscan), and a
second command-line tool that does not use the daemon (clamscan).
SpamAssassin (http://spamassassin.apache.org/)—A spam-filtering program
written in Perl. It uses a large set of rules to help determine how “spammy” a message
looks and assigns a score based on the total of the rule values. For performance
reasons, SpamAssassin uses a background daemon called spamd to perform message
analysis. Access to this daemon is performed through the spamc client. A spamassassin
command that performs the analysis without using spamd is also installed but is not used
by either of the example configurations in this chapter.

Preparing Your System
You will need a few common items for the mail server configuration covered in this chapter, starting
with the proper hardware. A personal mail server can easily run on a Pentium-class computer,
although you may notice occasional slowdowns while incoming messages are being scanned. Disk
space requirements depend mostly on how much mail you want to have room for, so plan on having
a few gigabytes for the operating system (which will leave you plenty of extra, just in case),
plus the amount of mail you want to store.

The operating system should be installed with only the basic set of packages before you begin these
examples. Some general information about the installation is provided in Chapter 9. Although the
software described in this chapter works even if you aren’t running Debian, the installation methods
will not. If you don’t have a spare system to act as a dedicated mail server, you can still use it as
your workstation, although this is obviously recommended only for personal use.
Your network settings should also be properly configured before you begin installing the mail software.
The exact requirements depend on the method by which mail will be delivered to your
server:
Direct delivery is the method used by most traditional mail servers. DNS records tell
remote servers that any mail addressed to your domain should be sent to your server via
SMTP.
Retrieval from a mail host is also possible using an MRA (mail retrieval agent) such as
Fetchmail. This option can be used when you have a mailbox under a shared domain but
want to access the mail on your own server. This can also be done in combination with
direct delivery if you have both your own domain and mailboxes under shared domains.

Configuration of Fetchmail is explained in the “Configuring Mail Clients” section of this
chapter.

Configuring DNS for Direct Delivery

For direct delivery to function, the SMTP service (TCP port 25) must be accessible to the outside
world through a fixed name in DNS. This name will be in the form of an A (Address) record. A
record allows DNS resolver processes to determine the IP address associated with a specific name
and are used by most of the common protocols on the Internet. A typical DNS A record looks
something like this:

bigserver.example.org IN A 10.0.12.16

The first parameter, bigserver.example.org, is the label, and the second parameter is the
class (IN for Internet, which is where most DNS records are found). The A indicates the type, and
the final parameter is the IP address associated with the label.
Once you have your A record, you can direct mail to your server using an MX (Mail eXchanger)
record. The A and MX records do not need to be part of the same domain, which allows for much
greater flexibility. Here is a sample MX record:

widgets.test. IN MX 0 bigserver.example.org.

This MX record indicates that mail for any address@widgets.test should be sent through the
server bigserver.example.org. The 0 indicates the numeric priority for this MX record.
When more than one MX record exists for a given label, the MX with the lowest priority is tried
first. If a temporary error is encountered, the next highest priority mail server is tried, and so on
until the list is exhausted. At that point, the sending server will keep trying periodically until the
message times out (generally five days). If multiple MX records exist with the same priority, they
are tried in a random order.

Most mail servers will also fall back on the IP address listed in the A record for a label in
the event that no MX records exist. However, it is considered bad practice to rely on
this.

In some cases, it may be complicated to establish an A record because your IP address frequently
changes. Obviously, this is not suitable for commercial purposes, but there is a workaround that is
acceptably reliable for personal use. This is achieved through dynamic DNS services that are available
(often at no charge) through a number of different companies. A list of these companies is
maintained at http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Internet/Servers/
Address_Management/Dynamic_DNS_Services/. Three of the most popular (in no
particular order) are:

DynDNS.org (http://dyndns.org/)—Supported by the ddclient or ipcheck
packages.

ZoneEdit (http://zonedit.com/)—Supported by the ez-ipupdate package.

No-IP (http://no-ip.com/)—Supported by the no-ip package.

The ez-ipupdate package supports all three of these, plus a number of others. View the
package description (apt-cache show ez-ipupdate) for more information.

Most of these services will provide you with a host name under a shared domain at no charge and
can also provide a similar service for your own domain for a reasonable fee.

Configuring for Retrieval from a Mail Host

The configuration requirements when retrieving mail from a mail host are pretty limited. Your
server should be ready to accept mail addressed to localhost and should generally have a name
that is unique to it. In the event that a message sent to one of your mailboxes is rejected, the server
will need to have a valid host name by which to identify itself when sending out the DSN (Delivery
Status Notification).
You must be able to access the server from clients, although you may need to do so only from
clients within your network. In either case, you should be familiar with the information about DNS
and A records in the previous section.

Installing and Configuring
the Mail Server Software

Once you have finished with the prerequisites, you will be ready to begin the software installation.
The software installation and configuration have been divided into two sections. The first section25
covers the installation of Exim and Courier. The second section covers the installation of ClamAV
and SpamAssassin and configuring Exim to use them to filter incoming mail.

Installing Exim and Courier

Installing and configuring Exim and Courier are very straightforward thanks to the quality of the
packages that come with Debian. Chances are, if you have a new Debian system, it already has a
version of Exim installed. However, you’ll want to use a specific version of Exim that contains features
for content scanning. Here are the installation steps:
1. Start by installing this particular Exim package:
# apt-get install exim4-daemon-heavy
2. There are a few configuration options that you need to change from the defaults. Run the
following command:
# dpkg-reconfigure –priority=medium exim4-config
You are asked a number of questions. Here’s how to answer them:
Split configuration into small files: Yes.
General type: Select “Mail sent by smarthost; received via SMTP or fetchmail” if you
need to send all of your outgoing mail through a server at your Internet service provider.
Otherwise, select “Internet site; mail is sent and received directly using SMTP.”
Mail name: Enter the name of your mail server here.
IP addresses: Clear this box (or leave it empty if it is already so) so that Exim will listen
on all local IP addresses.
Destinations to accept mail for: Enter any domains that your server will be accepting
mail for. Be sure to separate them with colons, and not commas or spaces.
Domains to relay for: Enter the names of any domains that your machine will relay
mail for, meaning that it can receive mail from them but then passes it on. In most
cases, you will not want to enter anything here.
Machines to relay for: Enter the IP address ranges of any client machines that you
want your server to accept mail from. Another (safer) option is to leave this empty and
require clients to authenticate using SMTP authentication. SMTP authentication is best
performed over an encrypted connection, so this process is described in the security
section at the end of this chapter.
Keep DNS queries to a minimum: No.

3. This configuration uses Maildrop for local mail delivery. Maildrop can deliver messages to
the Maildir-style folders that Courier is expecting, and can also handle basic sorting and
filtering (as described in the “Configuring Mail Clients” section). This package is not
installed by default, so install it as follows:

# apt-get install maildrop

4. Create Maildir mail directories for every user already on the system. This step must be
performed for every user that is already on the system, and must be run as the user
because running this command as root will result in Maildrop being unable to write to
the folders:
$ maildirmake.maildrop $HOME/Maildir
$ maildirmake.maildrop -f Trash $HOME/Maildir

5. Create mail directories under /etc/skel. The contents of /etc/skel will be copied
to the home directories of any new accounts that you create after the setup is completed:
# maildirmake.maildrop /etc/skel/Maildir
# maildirmake.maildrop -f Trash /etc/skel/Maildir

6. Configure Maildrop to deliver to the Maildir folders instead of mbox files stored in
/var/spool/mail. Use your favorite text editor to edit /etc/maildroprc and add
this line at the end of the file:
DEFAULT=”$HOME/Maildir/”

7. Exim needs to be configured to deliver messages using Maildrop. Use your preferred text
editor to open /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf and add the following line
at the end of the file:
dc_localdelivery=’maildrop_pipe’

8. Tell Exim to load the most recent configuration change:
# invoke-rc.d exim4 reload

9. Install Courier IMAP and Courier POP:
# apt-get install courier-imap courier-pop
Select “no” when asked whether or not the installer should create directories for Webbased
administration.

Your system should now be capable of receiving messages. You should also be able to connect to
your server using a mail client such as Thunderbird or Evolution. This is a good time to test mail
delivery, even if you’re planning to follow the directions in the next section to enable virus and
spam filters later. More information about configuring a mail client to connect to your server can
be found in the “Configuring Mail Clients” section later in this chapter.

Installing ClamAV and SpamAssassin

Installing and configuring the virus and spam filtering mechanisms is more involved than installing
Exim and Courier, but should still go smoothly as long as you follow the steps carefully. Keep in
mind, however, that this will add a lot of complexity to the system, so it is a good idea to make
sure the Exim mail server is working first so that you don’t have as many things to check if the system
doesn’t work as expected.

The version of ClamAV included with Debian 3.1 (aka “Sarge”) uses an older virus-scanning
engine. Because the updated engine is not likely to make it into an update any time
soon because of the Debian upgrade policies, a group of Debian developers has created special sets
of the ClamAV packages that are designed for easy installation on Sarge. For more information about
how to use these packages instead of the stock versions, see http://volatile.debian.net/.
You may choose to do this from the start, or to add the appropriate URIs to your APT configuration
later and do an upgrade. In either case, the configuration process detailed in this section will be
about the same.

Here’s how to install ClamAV and SpamAssassin, and then configure Exim to use them for scanning
messages:

1. Install the ClamAV and SpamAssassin packages:
# apt-get install clamav-daemon clamav-testfiles \
spamassassin spamc
You’ll be asked a number of questions about how ClamAV should be configured. Here’s
how to answer them:
Virus update method—This is the method that freshclam (part of ClamAV) will use
to download updated virus databases. The recommended option is to run freshclam as
a daemon.
Local database mirror site—This is the site that freshclam will retrieve the virus
information updates from. The second part of the site is the two-letter country code.
Select your country code or that of a nearby country if yours isn’t available.
HTTP proxy information—Do not enter anything here unless you are required to
use a proxy server to access Web servers. If your connection is suitable for running a
mail server, then you probably don’t need to use a proxy server.
Notify clamd after updates—Select “yes” here.

2. Add the clamav user to the Debian-exim group and restart the ClamAV daemon. This
allows the ClamAV daemon access to read the files in Exim’s mail queue:
# gpasswd -a clamav Debian-exim
# invoke-rc.d clamav-daemon restart

3. Replace the report template used by SpamAssassin with one that will fit more easily in a
message header. Use a text editor to add these lines to the end of /etc/spamassassin/
local.cf:
clear_report_template
report _YESNO_, score=_SCORE_, required=_REQD_, summary=
report _SUMMARY_

4. Configure the SpamAssassin background daemon to run automatically and to not attempt
to create preference files for users. Change the following options in
/etc/default/spamassassin:
ENABLED=1
OPTIONS=”–max-children 5”

5. Start the SpamAssassin daemon:
# invoke-rc.d spamassassin start

6. Create the entries that will be included in Exim’s ACL (Access Control List) for scanning
message data. Use a text editor to create a file named /etc/exim4/acl_check_
data_local that contains the following:
deny message = $malware_name detected in message
demime = *
malware = *
warn message = X-Spam-Score: $spam_score ($spam_bar)
condition = ${if <{$message_size}{80k}{1}{0}}
spam = nobody:true/defer_ok
warn message = X-Spam-Status: $spam_report
condition = ${if <{$message_size}{80k}{1}{0}}
spam = nobody:true/defer_ok
deny message = Spam score too high ($spam_score)
condition = ${if <{$message_size}{80k}{1}{0}}
spam = nobody:true/defer_ok
condition = ${if >{$spam_score_int}{120}{1}{0}}
The first block rejects messages that contain viruses or other malware, and the second
and third add headers to messages indicating whether or not SpamAssassin considers
them spam. The final block checks $spam_score_int (the spam score multiplied by
10) and rejects the message if it is greater than 120.
The /defer_ok in the last three blocks tells Exim that it is okay to continue processing
in the event that the SpamAssassin daemon could not be contacted. You can remove it if
you would prefer to have the server return a temporary failure code in such cases. You
can also add /defer_ok to the end of the malware = * line if you want processing to
continue in the event that a message cannot be scanned by ClamAV.

7. Tell Exim which virus scanner to use and how to connect to SpamAssassin. Use a text
editor to create a file named /etc/exim4/conf.d/main/10_exim4-exiscan_
acl_options that contains the following:
av_scanner = clamd:/var/run/clamav/clamd.ctl
spamd_address = 127.0.0.1 783
CHECK_DATA_LOCAL_ACL_FILE = CONFDIR/acl_check_data_local

8. Tell Exim to load the new configuration:
# invoke-rc.d exim4 reload
All messages transmitted through your server should now be checked for viruses using ClamAV.
Additionally, messages less than 80 kilobytes will also be checked using SpamAssassin. This is a
good time to test the configuration again. Fixes for the problems that you are most likely to
encounter can be found in the next section.
25
Testing and Troubleshooting
This section contains some generic troubleshooting tips, plus specific information about some
common errors and how to fix them.

Checking Logs

All logging information for Exim is written to three log files that can be found in
/var/log/exim4: mainlog, rejectlog, and paniclog. The first of these, mainlog, contains
log entries for all events, including normal events such as message deliveries. The second,
rejectlog, contains entries for rejected messages. The third contains information about configuration
or other errors, and is usually empty unless a serious problem has occurred. Every entry in
these files generally starts with a timestamp.
Entries in the mainlog will often include a string of 15 characters, such as 1E9PTu-0003jN-QY.
This is the message identifier for the message that the log entry is related to. Immediately after the
message identifier there will generally be a two-character string. Table 25-1 details what those
strings mean.
TABLE 25-1
Exim Log File Messages

Symbol     Description         Explanation
<=     Message arrival         These entries show messages coming into Exim, generally through
SMTP or local IPC.
=>     Message delivery         These entries show message deliveries, whether they are to a local
mailbox or to a remote host using SMTP or some other transport.
->     Additional addresses     These entries show delivery to additional addresses for messages that
in message delivery have already been delivered to another recipient (and logged with an
=> entry).
**     Delivery failure         These entries show permanent delivery errors. Errors such as these
indicate that the message has been removed from the mail queue and
in most cases a DSN (Delivery Status Notification) has been generated
and sent to the original message sender.
==     Delivery deferral         These entries show temporary delivery problems. The system will
continue to retry sending these until delivery succeeds, or a
permanent failure occurs as a result of a retry timeout.

Entries not associated with a message that has not been accepted into the queue will not have the
message identifier or two-character flags. Some samples of these types of entries are included in the
next section.

Logging information for the Courier IMAP and POP daemons is saved to /var/log/mail.log.
Normal entries include LOGIN and LOGOUT messages. DISCONNECTED messages generally indicate
that a connection was broken before a normal logout was performed.

The tail utility is useful for watching for new entries to a log. Use the -f switch to
instruct tail to watch for new entries and display them to the screen as they are written
to the log. For example: tail -f /var/log/exim4/mainlog

Common Errors (and How to Fix Them)

There are two common types of problems that you will encounter with your server: messages being
rejected or not delivered by Exim and login failures when connecting to Courier.
Messages Rejected by Exim
The first places to check when messages are rejected by Exim are the mainlog and rejectlog
files. Here are examples of some common errors and tips for fixing them:
Relaying Denied—The following error indicates that the client sending the message is
not recognized as a client by Exim and that the recipient domain is not in the list of local
or relay domains:

H=sample.client [10.0.12.16] F=<sender@example.org> rejected
RCPT <rcpt@remotesite.example.org>: relay not permitted

If the client IP address will not change frequently or is in part of a trusted range of IP
addresses, you can add them by running the following:

# dpkg-reconfigure –priority=medium exim4-config

The same command can also be used to add the recipient domain as a local or relay
domain.

Do not add client IP ranges unless you trust all of the users that can connect from those
addresses. Likewise, do not add a domain as a relay domain unless you know the owner
of the domain and have made arrangements to relay mail for them. Doing either of these incorrectly
could open your server up as a relay that can be used by spammers to attack other sites.

If the client IP address is likely to change frequently and is not part of a trusted range,
you should either configure the client to use a mail server that is local to it or configure
SMTP authentication in Exim. More information about enabling SMTP authentication can
be found on your server in /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/README.SMTP-AUTH
and /etc/exim4/conf.d/auth/30_exim4-config_examples.

The Courier authdaemon examples in 30_exim4-config_examples can be enabled,
allowing Exim to use that facility for authentication and negating the need to set up a
different mechanism. In order for it to work, however, you will need to add the Debian-exim user to
the daemon group (gpasswd -a Debian-exim daemon) and restart Exim.
25
ClamAV Misconfiguration—The following error indicates that the ClamAV daemon
could not read the temporary message file:
1E9PDq-0003Lo-BY malware acl condition: clamd: ClamAV
returned /var/spool/exim4/scan/1E9PDq-0003Lo-BY:
Access denied. ERROR
Make sure you added clamav to the Debian-exim group and restarted ClamAV, as shown
in the installation section.
ClamAV Unavailable—This error usually indicates that the ClamAV daemon is not
running:
1E9PGL-0003MX-38 malware acl condition: clamd: unable to
connect to UNIX socket /var/run/clamav/clamd.ctl
(No such file or directory)

Start it using invoke-rc.d clamav-daemon start. You can also use the clamdscan
program to test the daemon, as follows:

# clamdscan /usr/share/clamav-testfiles/clam.exe
/usr/share/clamav-testfiles/clam.exe: ClamAV-Test-File FOUND
———– SCAN SUMMARY ———–
Infected files: 1
Time: 0.001 sec (0 m 0 s)

Messages Not Delivered by Exim
In some cases, messages will be accepted by the server but will not be deliverable. Some of these
errors are considered temporary failures and will not generate a bounced message until the retry
timer runs out. The error that you are most likely to see will look something like this in the
mainlog file:

1E9PTu-0003jN-QY == user@example.org R=local_user T=maildrop_pipe defer (0):
Child process of maildrop_pipe transport returned 75 (could mean temporary
error) from command: /usr/bin/maildrop

This error indicates that Exim attempted to pass the message to Maildrop, but Maildrop returned
an error code. The most likely causes are a missing Maildir directory, or a Maildir directory that is
owned by the wrong user. The next section shows how to detect and fix these problems.

Login Failures When Connecting to Courier

Aside from genuine password errors (which can be remedied by entering the correct password in
the mail client), there are also a few other conditions that can result in login failures. Some of these
conditions will also result in temporary delivery problems. A normal login failure will result in a
log entry that looks similar to this:

courierpop3login: LOGIN FAILED, ip=[::ffff:1.2.3.4]

In this case, a user from IP 1.2.3.4 entered the wrong username or password.

Several of the other errors that may occur will not be logged to the mail log, which means that you
may have to test them by connecting manually to the POP3 service (from the mail server, or from a
remote machine) and sending a valid username and password. This example shows how to connect
to the POP3 service from a shell prompt on the mail server:

$ telnet localhost 110
Trying 127.0.0.1…
Connected to localhost.localdomain.
Escape character is ‘^]’.
+OK Hello there.
USER username
+OK Password required.
PASS password

The response you receive from the server should be similar to one of the following:

+OK logged in—This is a normal response and should mean that there are no problems
with the service.
-ERR Maildir: No such file or directory—This error indicates that the user’s account
does not have a Maildir directory. Use the maildirmake command to create it, as shown in
the “Installing Exim and Courier” section.
-ERR Maildir: Permission denied—This error indicates that the user’s Maildir directory
cannot be read or belongs to the wrong user. To remedy this, run this command as root:
# chown -R username:groupname ~username/Maildir
Be sure to replace username and groupname with the login name and primary group of the
user. In a stock Debian system, the primary group name will be the same as the username.
-ERR Login failed—If you’re certain that you are using the correct username and password,
it could be that the Courier authdaemon service is not running. Try to start (or
restart) it using this command:
# invoke-rc.d courier-authdaemon restart

Configuring Mail Clients

Any mail client with support for POP3 or IMAP should be able to access mail from your server.
Just use the name of your server in the mail server settings, and follow the troubleshooting steps in
the previous section if something doesn’t work.
25
Configuring Fetchmail

Fetchmail is an MRA (mail retrieval agent) that you can use to pull mail from a remote account to
your new server. It is configured in the $HOME/.fetchmailrc file and is very easy to set up. To
pull mail to your server, log in as the user that the mail should go, and then configure and run it
from there.

Run Fetchmail as the user for whom the mail is being retrieved. You should never run it
as root. If you’re doing a complex setup in which you retrieve mail from a single mailbox
that needs to be sorted out for multiple users, see the fetchmail man page for information about
multidrop mailboxes.

A .fetchmailrc file can be as simple as this:

poll mailserver.yourisp.example protocol pop3 username “foo”

If you have more than one mail server, you can add it as an additional line. If the server from
which you are pulling mail supports IMAP, you can use imap instead of pop3. Other options that
you can have are password=your password> and ssl. Storing the password in the file enables
you to run Fetchmail without entering a password, and the ssl option tells Fetchmail to use an
SSL/TLS connection to the server.

Your .fetchmailrc file should not be readable by others, and Fetchmail will generally
complain if it is. To set the permissions so that only you can read it, run

chmod 0600 $HOME/.fetchmailrc/.

Running Fetchmail is as simple as typing

$ fetchmail

If you want to have Fetchmail run in the background, you can use the –daemon (or -d) flags
with a parameter telling it how often (in seconds) to poll the servers:

$ fetchmail –daemon 300

To have Fetchmail automatically start when the system boots, add this to your crontab file:
@reboot /usr/bin/fetchmail –daemon 300

Fetchmail cannot prompt for passwords when run in this manner, which means that you
must store the passwords in .fetchmailrc for this to work.

If you haven’t configured a crontab file before, setting it up can be as easy as entering the following
three commands:

$ cat > mycron
@reboot /usr/bin/fetchmail –daemon 300
(hit Ctrl-D here)
$ crontab mycron

Configuring Web-Based Mail

If you’re running an IMAP server, you can offer Web-based access by installing SquirrelMail
(http://squirrelmail.org/, also found in the squirrelmail package). Start by configuring
your system as a LAMP server (see Chapter 24), and then install and configure the appropriate
package.

Securing Communications with SSL/TLS

Because communication between mail clients and the server often contains sensitive information
such as passwords, it is usually desirable to enable SSL/TLS encryption. Here’s how to enable
SSL/TLS in Exim and Courier:

1. Install the Courier daemons with SSL/TLS support:
# apt-get install courier-imap-ssl courier-pop-ssl
2. Third-party CA certificates are provided on the ca-certificates package. This will be referenced
in the configuration, so install it, too:
# apt-get install ca-certificates
Debconf asks you whether you want to trust the CA certificates by default. In most cases,
you want to select Yes.
3. If you are going to be using a certificate from a CA that is not already recognized (this is
generally only true if you are running your own CA), place the CA public certificate in its
own file in /etc/ssl/certs/ and update the certificate database:
# update-ca-certificates
4. Generate the private key and certificate signing request, as described in Chapter 24. The
best location for these files is in /etc/ssl/private/. Here’s an example:
# cd /etc/exim4
# openssl genrsa -out mail.key 1024
# chmod 640 mail.key
# openssl req -new -key mail.key -out mail.csr
# chown root:Debian-exim mail.key
5. Get your CSR (Certificate Signing Request) signed and place the certificate in
/etc/mail/private/mail.crt. Or, to do a self-signed certificate, do the following:
# cd /etc/exim4
# openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha1 \
-days 365 -key mail.key -out mail.crt
# chmod 640 mail.crt
# chown root:Debian-exim mail.crt

Some remote servers will refuse to send messages to your server if your certificate is not
signed by a CA that they recognize. Also, make sure the common name (cn) attribute on
your certificate matches the name of the server in DNS.
25
6. Concatenate the private key and certificate into a single file for Courier:
# cd /etc/courier
# cat /etc/exim4/mail.key /etc/exim4/mail.crt > mail.pem
# chmod 600 mail.pem

7. Enable SSL/TLS in the Courier IMAP and POP daemons by editing both
/etc/courier/imapd-ssl and /etc/courier/pop3d-ssl and replacing the values
for TLS_CERTFILE and TLS_TRUSTCERTS with the following:
TLS_CERTFILE=/etc/courier/mail.pem
TLS_TRUSTCERTS=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.pem

8. Tell Exim where it can find the private key and certificate, and enable TLS. Create a file
named /etc/exim4/conf.d/main/12_exim4-config_local_tlsoptions
containing the following:
MAIN_TLS_CERTIFICATE = CONFDIR/mail.crt
MAIN_TLS_PRIVATEKEY = CONFDIR/mail.key
MAIN_TLS_ENABLE = 1

9. Restart Exim:
# invoke-rc.d exim4 restart
Your server should now support SSL/TLS when communicating with SMTP, POP, and IMAP clients.

Summary

Using Linux and a good Internet connection, you can set up and maintain your own mail server.
Preparing your computer to become a mail server includes configuring your network connection,
setting up delivery and retrieval methods, and adding required software packages.
This chapter describes how to install, configure, and troubleshoot the Exim MTA. Exim can be
used in tandem with spam filtering software (such as SpamAssassin) and virus scanning software
(such as ClamAV). Methods for securing your mail server include configuring support for SSL/TLS
encryption.

Christopher Negus, “Linux® Bible 2007 Edition:,Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2007,  pp. 679-694

One of these days I’l put a tutorial on how to do it.

here is a screenshot of XP running inside Vista

XP running inside Vista