Hey,

I have never had a need for a mail server but this time round I thought I'd set one up.

I have exim4 installed on debian 6
phpmail function works fine
I can also send mail from the console

However I want to receive mail also.
I have multiple domains but I want to use one as the main mail server, so let's say:
domain1.com

so I want an email for the main mail server admin[@]domain1.com
but I want to forward my other domains i.e admin[@]domain2.com & admin[@]domain3.com to my main email address admin[@]domain1.com

I also want to be able to access admin[@]domain1.com via an email client like thunderbird using IMAP.

how do I go about setting up exim4 to do this? or is there a noobs guide that someone knows of?

Also, when I added my domains via the linode dns manager it adds an MX record for all my domains:
mail.domain1.com
mail.domain2.com
etc...

do I delete the mx records for all domains except domain1.com?

I know this is a basic question, but I have been trying to setup my main account but keep getting: 550 550 relay not permitted (state 14) when trying to send to my main email address.

Thanks in advance..

Exim is only a "mail transport agent" (i.e., SMTP server); this will allow your machine to send and receive mail from other mail servers, but in order to make your mail readable by a client (webmail, outlook, etc.) you need a mail delivery agent (a.k.a. POP/IMAP server) like courier or dovecot, which handles user inboxes. The Linode email guides are pretty straightforward to get these set up.

In order to receive mail for a domain on your Linode, you need to have an MX record for that domain pointing to your Linode. You should be able to configure Exim to do domain forwarding (user@domain2.com => user@domain.com).

thank you for your response, I have dovecot installed, I think what i was missing was reverse dns.

thanks again.