Setting up the Mail server

Email service is a revolution brought by the Information technology. Yahoo, hotmail, Gmail & similar services on corporate networks like MS exchange, Dominos etc. The technologies of email services are from complex to simple. I recently tried to setup my own new infrastructure to have real time mailing service at no cost with easy to use structure and implementations. I found it to very simple, usable and easily deployable within a small organization. Here is what it takes....................


To setup simple and preliminary setup one needs following minimum requirements: -

1. Windows 2003 server (Win XP can't do this job).

2. Internet Information server 6.0 (with SMTP & POP3 services enabled).

3. Mail client software, like outlook express etc. Outlook is by default available so let use it.


Lets assume we got a good running windows 2003 server installed. So make sure u have installed the Internet information server or else open manage my server window (Start --> All Programs --> Administrative Tools --> Manage Your server) and manage the server roles.


Setting up Mail server: - To setup the mail server from scratch


1. Open the "Manage your server" and click on add a new role.

2. Select Mail server (POP3 & SMTP) and finish up the installation after following up the wizard there after. That's it the server is installed and good to go, but just needs to be configured.

This is very important. On IIS server the POP3 server we have installed will be in effective with the associated SMTP server we have installed. This is something many people might messup with. I have checked some blogs on web where in emphasis is just on POP3 server, but unconfigured SMTP server will make POP3 server ineffective no matter u have any third party SMTP server for usage, as it works as listner and relay.


3. lets check the POP3 server and its installation & configuration. So lets click "start-->run" and type in "p3server.msc" it will open the management window.


By default the POP3 would be started and connected to the same machine( The host name). if not connect to it and start it. options are available once one selects the server icon.


4. Now its time to create the POP3 domain which will host the mail user accounts.

Right click on the on the POP3 server visible in the POP3 manager and click on new then domain. create a new domain like (mails.com, my office mail.com or just anything). one can create as much domain one likes.

Now right click on this newly created domain in the pick above its shown as uvmailsetup.com and now got to New --> Mail box. it will ask you to create a mail box. It is the email address hosted on the POP3 server, so name this mail box, lets for example name it UV_mailbox. And thats it we have successfully created the running email address and the POP3 server. And for our example consideration we have just created a email address UV_mailbox@domain.com.

4. Setting up the SMTP server :-

It is important to setup the SMTP server along with POP3 server. As one sets up the POP3 Server and creates a domain on it reflects directly on the SMTP server of the IIS server automatically, all you have to make sure is IIS server and the SMTP service associated is running. Just right click on the SMTP service of the IIS server, set the desired IP for routing and relay.

5. Set the mail Client.

Open the outlook express and then go to “ ToolsaccountsMail Tabclick new or edit existing ” in the setting box’s general tab Give a name to the account. And in the email mention the email address of the POP3 account you created above i.e. mailaccount@domain.com you created above.

Then set the server settings. POP3 server is your POP3 server under which you created the POP3 domain. And the SMTP server can be the SMTP server you created above or any other server which offers the SMTP service could be third party.

In case a third party server is considered then the IIS SMTP server will be working on port 25 so the third party server must be having inbound traffic relayed at some other port no and outbound at 25. So the mail will go from IIS SMTP to third party SMTP and then back to SMTP then to POP3 and then to the outlook express. Looks too much but this is required.

Make sure the incoming mail server setting is your complete email address you have created on your POP3 server plus the password you have assigned to it on the server itself.

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So at last, we got the Mail server ready to offer the mail service ready for use, create user and enable mailing service between them. This infrastructure can be used effectively in a small network of office with security wherein the third party SMTP as mentioned above could be the mailing security solution.