[development] setting mail server for development

[Augustin (Beginner)]

Hello,


Recently, I was trying to debug a patch for devel_issues.module: the 
problem was with the formatting of the mail notification. I had 
troubles working efficiently on that patch because my development 
platform is not configured to send mails (to myself!). 

In order to work on patches like this and for some contrib modules, I 
absolutely need to set myself up so that mails do get delivered.

I am using Linux (currently Mandriva 2006, though I plan to switch to 
Debian). 

I have installed the packages postfix and postfix-mysql, though I am 
not sure I need such a full featured software for simple Drupal devel 
needs. 

I don't have a static IP, so I didn't know how to proceed with the 
postfix configuration. 

Also, I am concerned about security issues. The mail server needn't be 
open to the world. The mail sent don't need to leave my local 
computer. 
Is there a way to configure Apache (or whatever is handling this) to 
sent emails directly to a file somewhere on my computer?


How do you handle such issues?


Augustin.