temporary email address concept

I would like to do a similar concept on how the site craigslist is able to create a temporary email address for a seller in order to hide the seller real email address (to keep it private) when someone wants to contact the seller. If you send and email to the temporary email address, it will actually go to the seller’s real email box. I would like to know how this 开发者_运维技巧is done? Do I need to install an email server? What do I need to actually implement this ?

Any suggestions or reading material would be great.

You have a lot of things to learn if you're asking this broad a question.

1. Install an SMTP server such as Postfix
2. Configure aliases that forward mail to the "real" destination
3. Have your application update the alias configuration whenever you need to create or delete an address.

How to actually accomplish all of this is way beyond what SO is for.

You would need to have a "catchall" mailbox so that all e-mail would go to it. Then you need to write a routine to check the emails and parse the "to" address, matching it to the real address in your database.