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ckoeber
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Joined: 21 May 2007
Posts: 156
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 Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:44 pm Post subject: Mail System Inquiry for Small/Medium Sized Campus... |
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Hello,
Topic Clarification
It was requested that I clarify this topic so this request is for implementation on a Gentoo-based Linux system.
I would like to implement a web-based mail solution for a campus (around 1000+ users). Here are the requirements for the solution:
- OpenLDAP integrated
All accounts must be controlled through an OpenLDAP instance, including account creation, deletion, authentication, and demographic information (name, address, etc.).
- Web-based Administration
This is flexible but there is a strong need for global administration of the server through the web browser. Since there is a strong chance that there will be many different components involved the entire solution may not be managed through the web the requirements are not set for this. However, there will be a strong plus if it is.
- Account Forwarding
Ability for the end user to forward mail to an external address. If the solution can also keep a copy of the forwarded mail that is a strong bonus.
- Rich Web-Based email client
I have looked at several web-based clients: (SquirrelMail, Zimbra, IMP, Calacode.com @mail) but I am not sure which one will fit the other requirements above nicely.
Our institution is also looking at a Google hosted solution but we have yet to get any pricing information from them. Our biggest worry with using that solution is the first item on my list (how complex will that be).
Any assistance is greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Christopher Koeber
Last edited by ckoeber on Sat Jul 12, 2008 5:23 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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steveb
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Joined: 18 Sep 2002
Posts: 4564
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:48 am Post subject: Re: Mail System Inquiry for Small/Medium Sized Campus... |
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Most of the full blown up MTA (aka: Postfix, Sendmail, etc) and IMAP/POP servers (Cyrus, Courier, Dovecot, etc) in Gentoo portage have the possibility to be integrated in LDAP.
Administration of what? Just users? The whole MTA? IMAP? POP? Other suff?
I am more a Postfix person so I can write here about Postfix. Postfix has various ways of forwarding mails. Some are easy (aka: just adding an destination to the remote address in an alias) and some are more complicated (aka: when you need to rewrite the sender address). Most situation will use the first one. But the problem is that today you can't just forward mails from one domain to the next one without taking care of SPF, DKIM, SenderID, etc... especially SPF is putting more and more not so sophisticated mail administrators at their borders of knowledge. If you want to have rock solid account forwarding, then you will need to learn how to do it the right way. Anyway... Postfix (and Sendmail, but I just know it can but I don't know 100% how) offers you all you need in order to get proper account forwarding.
| ckoeber wrote: | - Rich Web-Based email client
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The more complicated (aka: Zimbra, OX, etc) bring already their own user management tools with them. So you need to look at them and evaluate if they suit your needs. The easier ones (aka: IMP, SquirrelMail, RoundCube, etc) don't have their own user management and you pretty much can integrate them in most of the web user administration tools (aka: Postfix.Admin, Webmin, WebCyradm, Horde, etc)
Everything you need is to sit down and specify exactly what you need. Depending on your needs some solutions fit better then others. On the pure SMTP / IMAP / POP3 level most of the applications are equal well suited. If you look into the details, then you will spot some differences. But it all depends if you need that feature or not (for example Cyrus having integrated filtering/macro language (sieve) while other don't, Sendmail having full blown up support for milter while Postfix having limited support for milters, Dovecot being the fastest or among the fastest, Cyrus being the most feature rich, Postfix being very modular, DBmail offering you to store everything in a database, etc).
The web-based email client is from my viewpoint the hardest part. You can choose so many different clients here. Zimbra for example is a good web client but a real pain to set up in Gentoo and it does force you to use their own Postfix package, their own OpenLDAP package, etc. And on top of that you need to have a JAVA application server (for example Tomcat, Ressin, JBoss, etc) to things to work. Others like IMP are less demanding (a simple HTTPD and PHP with some modules is enough). To help you to get quicker to an answer what to use, ask yourself if you just need mail or if you need mail and calendaring & scheduling. This will eliminate some of the web clients. Then ask yourself if you need users to have their own address books on the server and if you/they need a corporate address book as well. Then ask yourself if you need stuff like shared folders, workflow enabled in mail, simple document management, etc... Then ask yourself if you need to support mobile devices and/or syncing with mobile devices. Etc, etc, etc... The more you can specify what you need, the easier you will find the web email client to suit your needs.
// Steve |
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ckoeber
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Joined: 21 May 2007
Posts: 156
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 5:20 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks so much... 
I will look at this and post again.
Regards,
Christopher Koeber |
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