How can I set up Windows to receive e-mail directly from other
computers or network devices over a LAN?

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Request for Question Clarification by abigayle-ga on 13 Jan 2003 16:01 PST

Hello;

I need to know which version of Windows you are using, i.e, XP, "98?

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Clarification of Question by jsbach-ga on 15 Jan 2003 16:02 PST

Windows XP Professional; I believe I will need some sort of software
for this.  I attempted this by putting in a fixed IP onto my computer
and configuring Netscape Mail but no luck so far.  Thanks

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Request for Question Clarification by sycophant-ga on 19 Jan 2003 06:18 PST

The likely answer to your question is quite complex and there are a
number of scenarios depending on precisely what you are trying to
achieve.

Are you only trying to use this for internal office mail, and between
how many computers?

Or, do you want to set up a computer on your LAN specifically to
handle all the email for your domain name? If so, do you have an
internet connection with a fixed IP address?

How much money are you willing to spend to achieve this, and must the
solution operate on your current Windows XP Professional computer, or
would you consider making available a seperate computer to operate as
a server.

What mail programs are you currently using on the client computers,
and are there any special features you require (eg. shared
calendaring, shared mailboxes).

If you can answer these questions, I would be more than happy to set
you off in the right direction.

Regards, 
sycophant

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Request for Question Clarification by abigayle-ga on 20 Jan 2003 09:20 PST

jsbach-ga

Thanks for the clarification. I will have the information shortly.

abigayle-ga

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Clarification of Question by jsbach-ga on 20 Jan 2003 16:58 PST

This is for Funky...I need to do a product demo for a self-contained
web server, which generates jpeg images and sends them as attachments
via email to an email address, but I will not have access to a
"network".  I am hooking both the "black box" web server and my
computer directly to a local hub which is not up-linked to anything. 
I have already assigned an IP to the black box and can access its web
server through my Lynksys hub by just typing in the IP of the black
box on my browser.  I need to set up my laptop as a "mail server" in
the sense that it be able to recieve these mails directly across the
hub and not retrieve from a server.  There is no wider connection
involved, just the black box and my computer.  Most of the people I´ve
talked to suggest that the only way is to connect to a server, but I
know that a server is a computer just like mine....some type of
software (hopefully cheap) should allow me to do this...

Hi jsbach, 

The situation you describe is fairly straight forward, and you should
be able to set this up with little or no expense.

Ideally what you need is a small, self-containted SMTP/POP3 server
daemon that you can run on your laptop. A number of these programs
should be available for your computer, and I will go into them
shortly.

On the 'black box' you will need to configure the SMTP server to be
the IP address of your laptop, which will be running SMTP software.
And similarly on the laptop, within the email client, you will need to
configure the POP3 server to be the laptop (as it is the same machine,
it is easiest to use 127.0.0.1).

The mailserver will also have to be setup to accept mail for a certain
domain, however as your network is private, this domain does not have
to actually exist. It can be something such as "demonstration.com" or
almost anything else you can think of. And it will need a rule defined
that allows it to store the mail received to an address on that domain
for later POP3 collection.

The trickiest bit is going to be finding a suitable mail server,
however there are a number available.

You specifically need the following features:
- SMTP functions
- POP3 functions
- Internal mail handling - not dependant on net connection

A number of mail servers are listed in the Tucow archive:
http://www.tucows.com/mailserver95_default.html

Some promising candidates are:

ArGoSoft Mail Server
http://www.tucows.com/preview/195579.html
http://www.argosoft.com/applications/mailserver/
Seems to offer the features you need, and has moderate support. Also
features an internal web-mail system. Available in a number of
different versions (Tucows link to Pro version)

MailEnable Standard 1.5
http://www.tucows.com/preview/237718.html
http://www.mailenable.com/
Offers the main features required and is available as Freeware
software. Again, is available in multiple versions to support your
budget and requirements. Offers online support and knowledge base.

MDaemon 6.5.1
http://www.tucows.com/preview/273581.html
http://www.altn.com/
MDaemon is a well known and well supported standalone mail server, and
is suitable for a variety of roles. It offers the POP3 and SMTP
features required and has many other features. Tucows link is to Demo
version.

Mercur Mail Server 4.2
http://www.tucows.com/preview/195570.html
http://www.atrium-software.com/english.asp
Mercur is another commercial server offering the basic services
needed, and more. The Tucows link is to a 30-day Demo version.



Any one of the above mail servers should be able to provide the
functionality you require, however the difference is likely to come in
the configeration and operation of each. For this reason I would
suggest trying a few and also having a good look at the online
documentation before you install them.

If you are unable to get things working as they should, please feel
free to request a clarification - I am very familiar with the
operation of email systems, and should be able to help you clear up
general difficulties.

Good luck with your demonstration.

Regards,
sycophant

There are a couple solutions to what you describe. One is to use
instant messages through something like Windows Messenger, or even
WinPop.

The other is not exactly what you describe. 
Generally, when one computer sends an email message, regardless of who
the message is addressed to, the mail program (Netscape Mail in your
case) contacts the mail server, which can be a dedicated server or a
server that happens to be running a mail server program. One example
would be Exchange Server. There are also Linux based mail servers. The
mail server (program) takes the message, stamps some info on to it,
and either deposits it into a local mailbox or forwards it on to
another mail server which does the same thing. This is why some email
messages pass through several systems:

example:

here is a message that was sent to me by another user on my LAN.

Return-Path: 
                   <heraddress@domain.com>
          Received: 
                   from domain.com ([her IP address]) by
priv-edtnes61.domain.com(InterMail vM.5.01.05.17
201-253-122-126-117-20021021) with ESMTP id
                   <20030116004116.FGWC7527.priv-edtnes61.domain.com@domain.com>;
Wed, 15 Jan 2003 17:41:16 -0700
       Message-ID: 
                   <3E25F56D.F9717A62@domain.com>
              Date: 
                   Wed, 15 Jan 2003 15:57:35 -0800
             From: 
                   Her name<her address@domain.com>
          X-Mailer: 
                   Mozilla 4.72 [en] (Win98; U)
 X-Accept-Language: 
                   en
     MIME-Version: 
                   1.0
            Subject: 
                   [Fwd: Labor Pain]
      Content-Type: 
                   multipart/alternative;
boundary="------------0E7C47B38957ACE0991A65DD"
    X-Mozilla-Status: 
                   8001
   X-Mozilla-Status2: 
                   00000000
           X-UIDL: 
                   <3E25F56D.F9717A62@telus.net>
As you can see, the message was received by our ISP's mail server and
then put in my mailbox, and I then downloaded it when I checked my
mail.

Sometimes there are several "received from xxx by xxx" lines, as one
is added by each mail server.

There may be another solution, but I'm not familiar with it. If you
want the emssages to go direct from PC to PC, then you'd have to run
and use that software on each PC, as no common mail client like
Netscape or Outlook (Express) is designed to send to different
computers for each message. All are designed to send all messages to
one mail server.

I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you.

the only real way to do this is to run an email server on each
computer that wants to directly recieve its email. Your email address
would then be something like
yourname@TheNameOfThePcWhereThisMailShouldGoTo.yourdomainname.com.
This would be much simplier however, if you want only one email server
on your local network, which would directly send and receieve all the
email for your lan. Let me know if you are interested and I could find
some appropriate software for this purpose.