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30.

Default E-Mail Configuration

31.

Even if you are planning to use a graphical mail program, it is important that a traditional MTA/MDA is also installed and correctly set up on your Linux system. Reason is that various utilities running on the system<footnote> <para> Examples are: <command>cron</command>, <command>quota</command>, <command>logcheck</command>, <command>aide</command>, &hellip; </para> </footnote> can send important notices by e-mail to inform the system administrator of (potential) problems or changes.

32.

For this reason the packages <classname>exim4</classname> and <classname>mutt</classname> will be installed by default (provided you did not unselect the <quote>standard</quote> task during the installation). <classname>exim4</classname> is a combination MTA/MDA that is relatively small but very flexible. By default it will be configured to only handle e-mail local to the system itself and e-mails addressed to the system administrator (root account) will be delivered to the regular user account created during the installation<footnote> <para> The forwarding of mail for root to the regular user account is configured in <filename>/etc/aliases</filename>. If no regular user account was created, the mail will of course be delivered to the root account itself. </para> </footnote>.

33.

When system e-mails are delivered they are added to a file in <filename>/var/mail/<replaceable>account_name</replaceable></filename>. The e-mails can be read using <command>mutt</command>.

34.

Sending E-Mails Outside The System

35.

As mentioned earlier, the installed Debian system is only set up to handle e-mail local to the system, not for sending mail to others nor for receiving mail from others.

36.

If you would like <classname>exim4</classname> to handle external e-mail, please refer to the next subsection for the basic available configuration options. Make sure to test that mail can be sent and received correctly.

37.

If you intend to use a graphical mail program and use a mail server of your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or your company, there is not really any need to configure <classname>exim4</classname> for handling external e-mail. Just configure your favorite graphical mail program to use the correct servers to send and receive e-mail (how is outside the scope of this manual).

38.

However, in that case you may need to configure individual utilities to correctly send e-mails. One such utility is <command>reportbug</command>, a program that facilitates submitting bug reports against Debian packages. By default it expects to be able to use <classname>exim4</classname> to submit bug reports.

39.

To correctly set up <command>reportbug</command> to use an external mail server, please run the command <command>reportbug --configure</command> and answer <quote>no</quote> to the question if an MTA is available. You will then be asked for the SMTP server to be used for submitting bug reports.