POSTFIX MUTT NIGHTMARES

[grandma]

3 weeks - no postfix working - am looking at MUTT and trying to figure out what I actually need. This was so easy - 30 minutes in Windows - not 3 weeks without a single success.


Here is what I am trying to do:

1. I own a domain. aiemkey.com

2. I set the DNS A record to point to a static IP I am leasing. I set the MX records (2 of them) to the same IP.

3. Apache is doing fine and dishes out pages for this "test domain" on port 80 nicely.

4. I set up Postfix so someone could theoretically send an email to info@aiemkey.com

I would test this sending an email TO info@aiemkey.com FROM me@gmail.com

a) After a week and finally getting Postfix to load without crashing, it used to bounce these INCOMING emails from Gmail with various errors.

b) I can't find any logs - eliminating my ability to see what Postfix is doing/rejecting etc. I have read through at least a hundred pages of tutorials on Postfix filters, Perl filters; all kinds of settings.

c) I can't find any box where the mail might be stored. There was a time around 2 weeks into this, when gmail didn't get an instant bounce/reject message, so I thought maybe the email actually landed somewhere.

Torquing the main.cf file and master.cf file further eliminated those successes and now I get bounce messages again.


I really do not want Postfix with all these headaches. I don't want a mail server that takes this long to understand and configure. This should be simple:

a) start a process. It monitors ports 25, 110, 587, 465 and simply receives a message. Done. That is all I really want to accomplish at this time.

b) IF (huge IF) I can find some message - any mesage - stored in a file, I can write my own spam filters in Perl.

c) IF I can get the RECEIVE MAIL PUT IN A FILE function working, then I will play with SEND A MESSAGE - using MUTT or some other tool - I have no idea what.

At this point I don't even know what Postfix THINKS it is doing - it seems to start and perhaps receives some communication from Gmail - who knows? While I am sure plenty of Linux lovers love Postfix, its a nightmare to me if after 3 weeks its still just a lump of useless clay and reminds me of software suitably replaced by a simpler solution.

Any help configuring these simple functions with whatever is in the repo would be much appreciated. Thanks.