hMailServer is an Open Source email server for Windows. It supports all the common email protocols such as IMAP, POP3 and SMTP. In addition, it provides antivirus protection, spam protection, DNS blacklists, logging, distribution lists, aliases, virtual domains, etc. It ships with a light version of the MySQL database. If you don't have a database server installed, hMailServer installs this light MySQL edition automatically. In this article we will help you set up your own mail server using hMailServer.

Pre-requisites
First, get a domain name of your choice. Open the configuration page of your domain on the website from where you registered. In the 'A record' provide the Public IP address of the machine in which you are going to configure the mail server. Now in 'MX record' specify the domain name, as done in the A record. Next, change the host name of your system to same as that of the domain name.

For this go to start>run, type c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts and press enter. Select notepad from the 'open with dialog box'. Find the line including '127.0.0.1 localhost'. Replace 'localhost' with your domain name and save the file.

The hardware requirement basically depends on the number of users. So, take any machine which fits your requirement for the mail server. For instance, in case of 25 users you can even go for a standard P4 machine with 512 MB RAM, 80 GB HDD and Windows XP.

Take the hMailServer from this month's PCQXtreme DVD or download it from the link mentioned in the specs box. Installation is pretty straightforward and takes a few minutes.

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