Today we have a chunk from Run Your Own Mail Server.
Email clients like Outlook and Thunderbird expect to communicate with a fully functional mail system. You don’t have one yet. Testing your IMAP configuration requires a client that handles IMAP separately from sending mail. If you are already cozy with your preferred mail client and can make it test receiving separately from sending, use it. Configure an IMAP account in your client, try to connect, and see what happens.
If you don’t have such a client, I recommend mutt (http://www.mutt.org). One advantage mutt has over other mail clients is that you can run it on the server, letting you test features like IMAP and mail submission without worrying about the network between your desktop and your server. You should have already configured your packet filter as discussed in Chapter 1, but you couldn’t test it until something was listening on those ports.
Mutt is a command-line email client, by default displaying only text. That’s fine—the question is not “can we view the pretty spam?” but “can we log into IMAP and view our messages?”
With any luck, I’ll have a Kickstarter notification page next week.