[lug] Sending e-Mail under Linux

[John Dollison]

I think I've come up with some newbie questions about mail.  I've been
trying to read the appropriate help files and HOWTO's, but I'm still a bit
confused:

1.  After installing RedHat 7.3 on one of my computers, I opened KMail 1.4.1
and tried to send a test mail to my hotmail account, before I had actually
configured KMail.  I expected it to act like a Windows machine (ok, shoot
me) and say "You're not configured yet!", then open some sort of Wizard.
Instead, it really did send a mail to my hotmail account, with the From: and
ReplyTo: addresses set to <john at localhost.localdomain>.  I was really
suprised that this had worked, but since I have a broadband connection
through AT&T, I figured maybe it had configured itself for AT&T's SMTP
settings.  But when I checked, it was using sendmail, which I thought was a
local daemon of some sort.  So I don't understand how my computer actually
figured out which computers to talk to, to get my mail to it's destination.
Is there some kind of tutorial that I haven't read yet, or can someone give
me some clues?

2.  After playing with KMail a little, I found that I could change the
identity to simulate my wife's yahoo account, and even send an e-mail to a
list she belongs to.  I don't understand how I managed to do this without
some sort of authentication stopping me.  It seems like I could simulate
anyone I wanted?

3.  If I'm using sendmail to create my own custom e-mail addresses, how do I
ensure any replies come back to me, short of setting my ReplyTo: address to
my hotmail or AT&T accounts?

4.  In Outlook Express, you could choose POP3, IMAP, or HTTP mail, but I
didn't see that last option in KMail.  Although I've figured out how to
configure KMail to use SMTP to get my AT&T mail, I haven't figured out yet
if there's a way to use KMail to retrieve my Hotmail.  Any ideas?

I hope these questions aren't too amateurish; but even a few pointers in the
right direction would be greatly appreciated!  Thanks!

John D.




----- Original Message -----
From: "John D" <john at localhost.localdomain>
To: <johndollison at hotmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2002 5:45 PM
Subject: test