Mail Server - Outgoing Address?

English Network/Internet
#1

I just set up a new router for our home office. I’ve enabled traffic logging, and I’d like to have the logs emailed to me. However, in order to configure email-notification, the router needs and outgoing mail server. Forgive me, but I don’t really understand the terminology being used here. I’ve googled this a bit, but I’m not sure I now what “outgoing” vs “incoming” mean in the context. I tried using my gmail account as the outgoing mail server (smpt.gmail.com) but it requires TTLS encryption, and there’s no option for that on my router.

So I figured I’d setup a simple mail server on my local network. I have a dedicated server machine, so I’d just configure a mail server there. But I got stumped at the first input box (in the yast module):

“Outgoing Mail Server”.

??

That’s what I wanted to use this server for. What is this “outgoing mail server”? I understand it in a normal emai context (I think) but this is confusing me. I’ve read through the HowTo on the openSUSE wiki, but it still doesn’t answer this question.

Isn’t there some way to have a simple, local mail server (without MX records and the like) so I can send email from a local machine? What am I missing?

#2

The outgoing server is the one that forwards your email onwards and is usually provided by your ISP. It sounds to me as if, for this purpose, you should use smpt.<your_isp>.

AFAIK a mail server for your local network will only serve addresses on your network; in order to send mail through the firewall into the big wide world, it needs an outgoing mail server which is what YaST is asking for. You may not need this facility but YaST is assuming there is no point in setting up a local mail server without it.

#3

Thanks, that explanaition helped alot. I ended up using a mail server provided by ione of my hosting companies; all’s well now.

Thanks again