Set up an Email server on intranet without domain

Question

I work in a small office with about 35 people and we are all on a intranet. This network is not connected to the internet.

Is it possible to set up an email server, with which we could send emails to each other? (We don't need to send emails outside our network.)

I cannot use a messenger service like Openfire, since the messages could be asynchronous, and we'd like to get those emails in a email client like Thunderbird.

Another obstacle we have is that we do not have a domain name.

Any ideas on which free (as in beer) software could be used? We have both Windows and Linux machines.

Solution 1

I found that I could use hMailServer

http://www.hmailserver.com/documentation/latest/?page=howto_set_up_local

Solution 2

I've used postfix for sending mail on a local network and dovecot to provide POP and IMAP mail collection.

You don't need to have a real domain name to set this up.

There are lots of HOWTOs that can show you how to set them up:

http://www.google.com/search?q=dovecot+postfix+local+mail

Comments

[Devdatta Tengshe]

We already have a shared directory (which is also under SVN) for the documents. We require email, for communicating thing like progress, announcements and getting things in writing, instead of just verbal communication. As for you question, we are mostly on windows, with a couple of Red Hat servers