This is primarily so I can remember how to do this. I have yawl set up as a postfix host here at Chez Geek, but my smart mailhost is actually off in colocation land.
So with my problems with Thunderbird still unresolved, it was time to try setting yawl up as a smarter mail client.
First things first, make sure postfix is installed. With Ubuntu, it comes installed by default, but not enabled.
Second, set up an /etc/postfix/main.cf file, and put in there:
relayhost = my.smarthost.name.com myorigin = name.com
Obviously substitute in whatever domain you're using normally for 'name.com'.
Restart (or start) postfix:
/etc/init.d/postfix start
Make sure there's no problems:
tail /var/log/mail.log
And off you go!
Update : several hours later... this has NOT resolved the slow performance problem with Thunderbird, and its' maddening. T-bird on my windows box runs perfectly fast over an ssh tunnel to the same host (cept using securecrt there). Very frustrating
Mad idea. In the postfix configuration, set
debug_peer_list = 127.0.0.1
and reload postfix. Then have Tbird submit mail to the local postfix, and see if anything obvious stands out (like reverse DNS checks).