check if some mail process deamon are running

Code:

ps -ef | grep -i mail

(even if some deamon run, maybe they have never been setup in the past, so you should do it first)

I think you shoul first configure some mail deamon (you would have to know the network topology, you would need to know you SMTP gateway or relay, and have the required network route/port/firwall open accordingly.)

You can then configure your deamon (usually sendmail) so that i can send mail through this gateway.
At a very final test, you could try to send mail using mail/mailx commands or whatever.