local mail broken and cannot mail outside server

Ubuntu 16.04 Server is a 64bit OS. Which is not compatible with a 32bit computer.
These may be the very problems that you are having.
Ubuntu no longer supports 32bit OS.
I would recheck the system info to see if your processor is 64bit compatible.
Ubuntu 16.04 is no longer available for standard support, ESM support only.

I have the 16.04 32-bit version (Xenial Xerus). If someone could give me instructions on how to config the appropriate files to get mail working, I can reinstall a fresh copy and start again.

16.04 is dead and gone. I suggest you switch to Debian as they are supporting 32bit architectures

Is there a thread of Debian that can answer how to setup mail to the outside world? That is all I need here on Ubuntu regardless of architecture. That is my question here: how to setup mailx to send to the outside world. Anyone? What happened to Manfred as he was helpful.

(I am not running a mailserver myself; I have no idea what the cause of your problem is)

Nice to hear from you again, Manfred. It's been awhile. I'm running a server with a website that has a html form and submit button. I want the data to be mailed to a gmail account. So far I can get the data to be sent to the mail on the server only, but not to gmail or outside world. I cannot even forward mail from the local mail server. I do not know what the main mail program is on ubuntu—whether it be mail, mailx, postfix, etc. I am a but confused here. I also do not know how to set permissions and probably how to modify the correct .conf file with the correct stmp and port numbers. I tried. Any guidance or advice would be appreciated. (I can switch to a 64-bit machine eventually, but I will face the same hurdle uness by default the lastest version of ubuntu comes turnkey.)
________________________________
From: <email address hidden> <email address hidden> on behalf of Manfred Hampl <email address hidden>
Sent: Thursday, March 9, 2023 12:25 AM
To: <email address hidden> <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: [Question #705684]: local mail broken and cannot mail outside server

Your question #705684 on Ubuntu changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/705684

Manfred Hampl posted a new comment:
(I am not running a mailserver myself; I have no idea what the cause of
your problem is)

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You received this question notification because you asked the question.

Maybe https://learnubuntu.com/send-emails-from-server/ helps.
You have to be aware that for spam prevention most public mail providers have restrictions on how external systems can connect to them for automated sending of mails.

I see now. I'll find a work around then. Perhaps I can instead write the data into a MySQL database and access that via an app on my phone or something. I was using webflow.io -- a paid service -- that handled and mailed the form data to me. I wonder how they overcame the restrictions then.
________________________________
From: <email address hidden> <email address hidden> on behalf of Manfred Hampl <email address hidden>
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2023 1:00 AM
To: <email address hidden> <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: [Question #705684]: local mail broken and cannot mail outside server

Your question #705684 on Ubuntu changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/705684

    Status: Open => Answered

Manfred Hampl proposed the following answer:
Maybe https://learnubuntu.com/send-emails-from-server/ helps.
You have to be aware that for spam prevention most public mail providers have restrictions on how external systems can connect to them for automated sending of mails.

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You received this question notification because you asked the question.

I did not tell that this is impossible.
In fact if you use a local mail client to access the foreign mail server, create a mail message locally and then transfer it to the mail server for delivery, that is exactly the same process.
Have you looked into https://learnubuntu.com/send-emails-from-server/ ?

I did it!!! Yipee!! I can send mail to the outside world using the smtp settings from an outside mail service provider like Gmail. This solves my form problem. No sense in paying for a form service--with recent price increase-- when I have plenty of old computers laying around to do the same--even if they are running 32-bit Ubuntu.

Although I can send emails from my server using local mail, I cannot send emails from outside to the local server. I presume to do this, I need to register a domain name for my server? Is that correct? I don't quite understand--because I can access local IP cameras from the outside world using the same dyndns address. Perhaps I need to open a port on my server?

Thanks Manfred Hampl, that solved my question.