need a mail server/forwarding program

[ndruw]

i need a mail server/forwarder to download and cache mail from my isp (save it on my server) so i can spam filter it myself as well as access it anytime (my internet tends to go down often...bad ISP. i would like it to be free open source software, please leave any suggestions you have!

*needs to run under debian linux (or possibl fedora core, i might be switching)

**the simpler the configuring, the better. im still kind of a linux noob

 

[Crusty]

fetchmail i think... not too sure since I haven't done this myself but I remember reading about it somewhere.

edit:
From http://www.catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/

What fetchmail does:

Fetchmail is a full-featured, robust, well-documented remote-mail retrieval and forwarding utility intended to be used over on-demand TCP/IP links (such as SLIP or PPP connections). It supports every remote-mail protocol now in use on the Internet: POP2, POP3, RPOP, APOP, KPOP, all flavors of IMAP, ETRN, and ODMR. It can even support IPv6 and IPSEC.

 

[cleverhandle]

Yes, fetchmail is the main thing you need. It will hook up to your ISP and pull the mail in to your local machine, making it look almost like your local machine was receiving the email in the first place. You'll also need some kind of MTA (Postfix, Exim, Sendmail, etc.) to do the receiving and filtering. If your machine is the one and only final destination for that mail, that's all you need besides a mailreader. If you want your machine to serve up your mail to other machines (maybe you have several PC's in a house or something), then you'll want an IMAP server (Courier, UW) as well.