Introduction

The mail to/from my hosting provider got interrupted now and then and the support wasn’t that good. Setting up a mail server using Freetz and PHPXMail was very simple. Now I can select my own blocklists and see in the logs what is (not) happening.

Basic setup guide

  1. To prevent disappointment: check if your internet provider allows SMTP (port 25) traffic

  2. Build and install Freetz with PHPXMail and AVM-firewall-cgi

    1. PHPXMail selects XMail and PHP
    2. Be prepared for the space requirements …

  3. Setup Firewall (Freetz menu Packages > AVM-Firewall)

    1. Select port forwarding
    2. Forward TCP port 25 to Fritz!Box port 10025 (SMTP)
    3. Forward TCP port 110 to Fritz!Box port 10110 (POP3)
    4. Apply settings
    5. Reboot

  4. Setup XMail (Freetz menu Packages > XMail)

    1. Set start type to automatic

    2. Fill in a existing directory for settings & storage, for example

      /var/media/ftp/uStor01/XMail

  5. Activate SMTP & POP3

  6. Activate unencrypted admin access

  7. Activate all logging for the time being

  8. Apply

  9. Start XMail (freetz menu Services > XMail > Start)

  10. Change the user name of the web interface to set XMail password (Freetz menu Settings > webcfg > change password)

  11. Open PHPXMail configuration site (Freetz menu Packages > PHPXMail > here)

    1. Login with user admin and the set web interface password

    2. Goto server config

      1. Enable DefaultSMTPGateways
      2. Fill in your provider’s smtp server address
      3. Save values
      4. Read ​this if you need to authenticate

    3. Goto server domains > new domain

    4. Enter your domain name, for example your-domain.com

    5. Submit

    6. Goto server config

      1. Enable and set CustMapsList to (see ​here):

        zen.spamhaus.org.:0

  12. Create an MX record that points to the external IP of your FritzBox

    1. See for example ​here for information
    2. Use ​DynDNS or similar if you have a dynamic IP address
    3. I created an MX record with a higher priority than the existing records, so in case of problems mail will be handled by my hosting provider as usual

  13. Setup your preferred e-mail client

    1. Server: external IP of your FritzBox
    2. User name: postmaster @ your-domain.com

  14. Test your configuration

    1. Send a test mail to postmaster @ your-domain.com (check server logs > smtp)
    2. Receive the test mail with your e-mail client (check server logs > pop3)
    3. Check for open mail relaying for example ​here

  15. Setup as many other domains and accounts as you like …

If you want to forward e-mail:

  1. Goto the domain user you want to forward mail for
  2. Select the link user mail proc
  3. Enter redirect|<forwarding e-mail address>
  4. Submit

It is not a bad idea to backup your XMail settings and storage directory!

Setup SSL

  1. Build XMail with SSL support

  2. Login using telnet (or better SSH)

  3. Goto the XMail settings directory

  4. Create the file openssl.cnf with the example contents from ​here

  5. Enter the following commands:

    openssl_genrsa 2048 > server.key
openssl_req -new -x509 -key server.key -out server.cert -days 365 -config openssl.cnf

  6. Answer the questions with anything you like, but use your domain name as common name (CN)

  7. Forward TCP port 465 to Fritz!Box port 10465 (SSMTP)

  8. Forward TCP port 995 to Fritz!Box port 10995 (POP3S)

  9. Activate the XMail options SSMTP and POP3S (note that the checkboxes don’t show up checked again before changeset r4760)

  10. Test by checking your e-mail with SSL (port 995) enabled