I am looking at ways to both send and retrieve email while traveling. Since I use hotel internet connections and public wireless connection, I am looking at a way to secure the connection. My traveling laptop is windows.John,
My idea is this.
1. Connect using ssh to the Linux server with a couple of tunnels from local ports to the mail ports. (25 Sendmail, 143 IMAP, 110 POP3)
2. Point my email programs (Outlook for work, Thunderbird for personnel) to the local ports connected to the tunnel
3. Send and recieve mail.
As others have mentioned, this works well. I use this method to check my home mail while at work. Another idea is to setup secure smtp/imap/pop (ports 465/995/993). This can be accomplished with SME server and the contrib at http://www.pagefault.org/howto/securemail.shtml
Thanks,
Dale