Guide to setting up Hexamail Nexus on LINUX

This is a guide to setting up your own email processing gateway on a LINUX machine.

Let's break the guide into some easy steps:

You will need:

• - a computer with plenty of diskspace (>2GB) for storing email queues, log files, statistics and echo $storewhat;
• - a 64bit LINUX operating system (for example Centos 5 or 6, Ubuntu, RedHat etc) (we can supply 32bit builds on request)
• - a permanent/reliable connection to the Internet

You will need:

• OpenSSL 1.0.2. Check your version with
  openssl version
• Install Openssl with
  yum install openssl
• Update Openssl with
  yum update openssl
• Root access or access allowing use of ports below 1024 for default SMTP etc

Next you need to download the required software and copy it to your chosen computer.

• 1) Download Hexamail Nexus and save the tar.gz file and license on the computer
• 2) Unpack the echo $ouid;.tar.gz file using the command
tar xvfz hexamailnexus.tar.gz
• 3) This creates a subfolder called hexamailnexus/ in which Hexamail will run. You can move this folder wherever you wish at this point
• 4) Switch to the extracted folder
cd hexamailnexus
• 5) View the INSTALL text file for up to date instructions on your version of the software
more INSTALL

Now you can begin configuring Hexamail Nexus. After some initial steps you can use the webadmin to configure the rest of the settings

• 1) Copy the file hexamailnexus.cfg.initial to hexamailnexus.cfg
cp hexamailnexus.cfg.initial hexamailnexus.cfg
• 2) Edit the file hexamailnexus.cfg
vi hexamailnexus.cfg
• 3) Fill in all the required settings listed in the file
[Service] // REQUIRED: This is the list of allowed IP addresses that can connect to your server AllowedIPList=127.*.*.* [Administrator] // REQUIRED: This is the password required to use any administration interface Password= [WebAdmin] // REQUIRED: This is the list of allowed IP addresses that can connect to your server AllowedIPList=127.*.*.* // REQUIRED: This is the TCP network port used for webadmin. Port=880

Now you can run Hexamail for the first time

• 1) Switch to the root user. This is required to allow Hexamail to use the ports required for email (port numbers under 1024)
su
• 2) Run the script ./start.sh provided with the software to start the Hexamail service
./start.sh
• 3) Verify there are no problems with the startup by checking the Hexamail Nexus log. It should eventually say Starting processing...
tail -f logs/Hexamail Nexus.log
• 4) You are now ready to connect to the webadmin and configure the other settings. To do this open a browser to http://yourservername:880/
If it is on this server use this link webadmin

To get Hexamail to run on start up or as a daemon (systemd service) you need to do the following.
First edit the startup script start.sh to contain the folder Hexamail is installed in by changing the following line:

[Unit] Description=Start Hexamail Nexus After=network.target [Service] Type=oneshot ExecStart=/path/to/hexamail/start.sh RemainAfterExit=true ExecStop=/path/to/hexamail/stop.sh [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target

You can now start and stop Hexamail using the command(s):


service hexamailnexus start
service hexamailnexus stop

You can configure using a remote Windows administration gui, using the Web Administration or by editing the configuration file directly.

The configuration settings are now the same as in the Windows Administration and you can use the same help file to read about the various options in the Administration sections here: Hexamail Nexus Help

In the WebAdmin press the help button on the page you are using to see help relating to that specific page of settings.

Web Admin Spam Blocker Help Button

Alternatively you can configure most of Hexamail using the configuration file directly using the instructions in the Configuration section here: Hexamail Nexus Help

Hexamail Nexus is a full-featured echo $type; and can offer various services to email and calendar clients.

Here is a list of services and the ports that need to be opened on your firewall/router to access each service

In your firewall you should allow incoming TCP connections for each port listed that you require, and in your Router/NAT device setup a rule to forward TCP traffic on the listed ports to the computer running Hexamail

* As configured in your configuration file or administration interface, default settings are shown