I've been reading the Perfect Server - Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon for Ubuntu 7.10 and found myself asking a few questions since I find myself to be a bit unclear or perhaps I just need it spelled out for me since I'm a noob But, I'm using the desktop edition and loving it so why now stop . 1st and formost, I am interested in creating and hosting my website along with 5 other sites (2 are friends of mind) with very low traffic and thought the Perfect server idea was interesting to try out as a project to learn more. As I'm reading the article, I'm having problems knowing how to apply it to having a website at home. In my own case, my router is managing the dynamic ip address so basically I have a static address all the time. - lastly, I am confused about the corelations to my registered domain name that I could use and how it should be reflected in my server. Let's use www.mrnibbles.com as the example of my own registered domain. (fictitious of course I will break down the parts I need to understand and hope someone could clear up my wondering mind : Here goes: On Page 2: Enter the hostname. In this example, my system is called server1.example.com, so I enter server1: I am asking myself the following: - Does it have to be my registered domain name? Or can in be an internal name I so chose? PAGE 3: 7 Configure The Network Curious scenario: - my router is currently assigning an ip address to the ubuntu server based on it's mac address to 192.168.0.100 however I was wondering if I would still actually need to explicitely specify it based on the howto? In the part for editing the hosts: vi /etc/hosts it's mentioned to add : 192.168.0.100 server1.example.com server1 Once again, do I need to put my registered domain name her or can it be my own internal naming? PAGE 5: You will be asked two questions. Answer as follows: General type of mail configuration: <-- Internet Site System mail name: <-- server1.example.com I wanted to know if this needs to be my registered domain or my own internal hostname. Can someone please confirm? The same thing follows with: System mail name: <-- server1.example.com Root and postmaster mail recipient: <-- [blank] Other destinations to accept mail for (blank for none): <-- server1.example.com, localhost.example.com, localhost.localdomain, localhost basically same question in regards to server1.example.com. Just wanting to know if my registered domain is to go there or my own internal hostname can be used. (e.g. -srvub1) for: Next we configure Postfix for TLS (make sure that you use the correct hostname for myhostname): would it be www.mrnibbles.com or even like mail.mrnibbles.com as examples of mrnibbles.com domain name registration for home. Anyways, I believe most of you will understand the following: - I basically have a number of registered domains for different things so wanting to host some of them at home. (since I have extremely good bandwith to do it I want to use the registered domain and just simply trying to clarify in my head a few things with the questions asked. Honestly appreciate the Help. And Falko - keep writing - love the articles and help you provide to everyone. Mr. Nibbles
Honestly if you are hosting more than one site then the base hostname of the system is somewhat irrelevant unless you have multiple IP addresses. The reason for this is because you will be doing what is called "Name Based" virtual hosting rather than IP based. What this means is that your server (apache for example) will reply based on the NAME that is being requested as opposed to the IP being requested. So if you follow along in the how to setup everything to a base hostname (ideally something that can be resolved or Apache will complain but will still work). Once you have the server setup you will end up creating a Virtual Host in Apache for each domain you want to host as it's own site. This will be the same for Postfix/Courier. The perfect setup is ideal for a SINGLE domain host (or to install ISPConfig which handles all the virtual setup for you). If you want many virtuals without ISPConfig I would strongly advise you merge the perfect setup howto with the Virtual Users Postfix/Courier Mail Howto on this site. So short answer: I would stick to one hostname (real or fake) throughout the howto. Just pick one and run with it...
re: Howto - Perfect Server - Ubuntu Hello Volksman Thanks for your input... Based on your answer, yes, I'm aware of the virtual hosting scenario (been doing some reading on that issue) however, for simplicity, I'm more interested in the example of just 1 domain registration in the example given of using fictitioous example of www.mrnibbles.com for my website or mail server using mail.mrnibbles.com What I'm trying to understand in my mind - line of questions is "how things work with the setup". . For example once the setup is completed based on the Howto graciously provided by Falko . I wanted to know how to approach email testing just for starters. I do realize in the howto that authentication is required based on the howto but how can I identify to the world that mrnibbles.com So far, I've been able to complete the install of the server without a problem but trying to understand a scenario with using my own domain registration and how it should be configured for someone with just 1 domain registration. In the howto, it keeps referring to server1.example.com and wondering if this would be appropriate to say that is this is where a person would use their own domain that they've registered. This is part of what's going on in my line of thinking as some of the howto refers to the importance of the hostname. I know at this point, my router is already pointing my own registered domain (e.g. www.mrnibbles.com). So I know if I was to type it in a browser, already apache server is working. I my own scenario both the mail and apache resides on the same both is in the case of this howto. How do I test sending email out to somewhere for example. And just as well receiving an email - how will it be recognized to work since nothing is referencing something like [email protected]. It is why I have these questions of confusion. So sorry for being a noob
Yes. You must create an email account first. You can either do this with ISPConfig or on the command line (if you don't want to install ISPConfig): http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2 Afterwards you can use an email client to send and receive emails. Of course, the MX record for your domain must point to your server. And since your server is behind a router and almost all dynamic IP addresses are blacklisted nowadays, you should configure Postfix to relay emails through another server: http://www.howtoforge.com/postfix_relaying_through_another_mailserver
Hello Falko, So given that I did not use the same hostname as my registered domain, will it mean that I would need to recreated my certificates for TLS? Also there's part of the howto such as: configure Postfix for TLS in which postfix was configured with another hostname chosen vs. my registered domain so can I simply change myhostname parameter with my registered domain? One last question: typically when people use mail normally you would see them use mail.mydomainname.com or smtp.mydomain.com for example. I am wondering about this only cause in my mind: I'm using 1 box to do: Mail Server Apache Server Question: can I refer to my server as "mydomain.com" only? Or can I make 2 references: vi /etc/hosts eg: 192.168.0.100 www.mydomain.com myhostname 192.168.0.100 mail.mydomain.com myhostname I'm thinking of this relative to both services running on the same box. I am sure to some it's a silly question however, I'm only trying to understand a thing or 2 in regards to configuration and setup of the server. So When Setting up postfix, I can use mail.mydomain.com is my line of reasoning but perhaps I'm wrong in my line of thinking... Guess that's why I'm a noob
Probably yes, unless you can live with certificate warnings. I'd change the myorigin parameter. You can use any FQDN or IP address that's pointing to the server.
