e-mail servers

[stormbind]

Learned that I might be setting up an email server.

But, I am not keen on e-mail, soooooo... I would like to persuade my client to have a Jabber server instead!

Jabber supports an e-mail agent, making it cross compatible, but I do not know if there is a suitable (Outlook-like) Jabber client. Do you know of one?

I have never setup a Jabber server before. Mind you, I have never setup an email server before. Is Jabber a good or bad idea?

--Glen

Memoria mihi benigna erit qui eam perscribam

 

[ecobb]

Honestly? If you don't know anything about setting up either one, then you need to refer your client to someone that does. Don't try to talk your client into/out of something they really need/want just because you don't know how to use it. That's a great way to lose a client and make you look bad in the process.


Hope This Helps!

ECAR
ECAR Technologies, LLC

http://www.ecartech.com

"My work is a game, a very serious game." - M.C. Escher

 

[stormbind]

In all due respect, you don't know the client, and I don't appreciate your off-topic input.

Due to budget limitations outsourcing is not an option, the client is well aware of my scope, I don't mislead anyone, and I don't see why you should make assumptions to the contrary.

I'm exclusively interested in the viability of Jabber as a challenger to legacy email solutions.

--Glen

Memoria mihi benigna erit qui eam perscribam

 

[Castor66]

Jabber supports an e-mail agent"

What email agent? Which Jabber server were you thinking of implementing? I took a look at the feature comparison chart for a variety of jabber servers (

http://www.jabber.org/admin/jsc/)

and SMTP, POP3, IMAP4 or MAPI is not mentioned once. How are you going to send messages to the majority of the worlds online community that do not use Jabber but are quite happy with plain old email.

To be honest, if you are going to set up an email system with little or no cash I'd look at a plain old Linux system with one of their mail servers on it (Sendmail, QMail, etc, etc).

If you have a bit more cash then use a hosting account which will give you a couple of hundred POP3 accounts and your own domain. All your clients employees will then get their own account. You'll probably get Webmail and you can use Outlook (or some other client) to manage the mail. Be aware that if a machine with mail on it dies you may lose all that mail!

There are lots more options depending on the amount of cash you want to spend. Give us an idea of budget (excluding your costs) and maybe we can help you more.

Trying to push a client towards Jabber doesn't make a lot of sense. Instant Messaging and eMail have their areas but one does not replace the other.

 

[dkediger]

A listing of Jabber clients:

http://www.jabber.org/software/clients.shtml

But I know nothing of their individual capabilities or Jabber itself.

One thing in evaluating Jabber vs email would be the tendancy/desire of users to treat the system as file storage. In email, this is a corporate policy decision whereas a different system might not support embedded file storage within the server thus forcing the users to save file attachements elsewhere.

Again, being ignorant of Jabber, what is the client's expectation of email add-ons such as calendaring and other groupware apps? Are these also supported in Jabber?

If this is a small client, Microsoft's Small Business Server is tremendous product; it includes the Exchange email system and Outlook client, supports remote users through Outlook Web Access, and supports collaboration through Sharepoint web services.

 

[stormbind]

You are all right, my bad!

Some years ago, an email agent existed existed for jabber, but nobody was willing to maintain it - so it died.

It would cost $$$$ to have a custom agent written for the jabber server.

--Glen

Memoria mihi benigna erit qui eam perscribam

 

[ponetguy2]

Ooooooooh, this is a tough one.

If I were you, I would dish out a few bucks and get an exchange server. i don't know much about mail servers, and i successfully launched an exhange server for a company i was consulting for. it was really easy and most workstations were also easy since they were all running windows.

i've worked with sendmail running on RH and i had a really hard time with it. i was forced to scratch the project and go with microsoft.

good luck on your project and i hope you are able to find the right mail server for you.

Carlo Reyes

Technology/Systems - Delivery
Networks and Infrastructure

Chicago Customer Technical Support

 

[BocaBurger]

Best solution I have found is SendMail on Linux for the server side and Pegasus or Mozilla Thunderbird for Windows side. Biggest advantage of Sendmail is that there are a lot of people who know how to set it up and you can get help from the 'net fast.

I used to have a Sendmail system in RedHat 5.0 running on a Pentium 233 with 128 meg of RAM supporting 250 users, with no problems.

Look at 1and1.com for an inexpensive hosted system.



BocaBurger
<===========================||////////////////|0
The pen is mightier than the sword, but the sword hurts more!

 

[kHz]

Sendmail is like wanting to be a pilot and buying a kit plane first, then taking lessons, then flying it and crashing, fixing it, take more lessons, then fly it again.

It can do anything you want but you have to configure it properly. It is possible to use it without a complete configuration, but it would be like driving a nascar with a governor.

There are more simple sendmail servers available. But whatever works for someone is what they should use.

 

[sostek]

Qmail - it absolutely rocks.

Or if you're Windows inclined:

602LAN Suite - has email, proxy, DHCP. In essence, the whole banana.

 

[chelseatech]

When we first set up our business we used a product from the UK called FTgate from

http://www.ftgate.com/

It ran fine on our NT server and had no problems in the years we used it. It looks like its still around and going strong.

We migrated to Small Business Server because I need to test the software I developed with MS Exchange. But I really miss the great stuff in FTGate.

Editor and Publisher of Crystal Clear

http://www.chelseatech.co.nz/pubs.htm

 

[robbieguy2003]

I used to have a Sendmail system in RedHat 5.0 running on a Pentium 233 with 128 meg of RAM supporting 250 users, with no problems.

Where i work we run the mailservers on Slackware with an exim/sendmail setup.

We're currently on Compaq 6400 servers (quad p3, 4Gb ram, 110Gb raid5), these machines happily process about 2million messages per day each and run at 30% average cpu.

If you want performance on the cheap you'll have to lean towards a linux/sendmail style. You can run it on cheap hardware and get great performance.

I wish someone would just call me Sir, without adding 'Your making a scene'.

Rob

 

[BocaBurger]

If you want SendMail to work perfectly. you hire a SendMail consultant to set it up. Train your Linux admin how to add & remove users and a few other common tasks, and you are set. The biggest advantage to SendMail on Linux is that you probably have an old server sitting there that would be perfect. Add a SATA Raid card and a few drives, and you are set to go. You might even have more than one, so for less than $1823.00 US, you could have a production server with a warm standby, or if you want to get fancy, a failover or load balancing system. The Linux could even be one of the free distros. I just picked up Mandrake (Mandriva) 10.1 for $7 for the CDs including shipping. Unbunto will send you the CDs free. Yup, not even a shipping charge. I ordered one of those too.


BocaBurger
<===========================||////////////////|0
The pen is mightier than the sword, but the sword hurts more!

 

[russellhancock]

Hi all,

not sure if this thread is dead yet or not...

i have been using CapeSoft email server (costs $30). i have been happy with this upto v2.21 (there is an annoying small glitch in it) but V2.00 (still downloadable and supported) works faultlessly.

It installes on pretty much any windows version (mine is on win 2k pro and has been on win xp pro - soon to be on win 2k server) and is really easy to config.

works with all normal email clients, the only one thing it doesn't do (i don't think) is hold the email in a central store, you have to access them as pop3.

hope this is of some use

Russell

 

[mrn]

If money is no object I'd go for a pair of exchange servers. If money is tight I'd go for Linux with Qmail.

Mike

"A foolproof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant."

http://www.airport-parking-site.co.uk/

 

[robbieguy2003]

I think exchange and sendmail both have there place. For an office you cant beat some of the features exchange has (integration with outlook etc).

For a powerful pop3 & smtp server though i think an exim and sendmail rig will give you a massive amount more mileage on the hardware you run it on.

I wish someone would just call me Sir, without adding 'Your making a scene'.

Rob

 

[maccherons]

What would you suggest to me if I want a linux mail server to give mail service to my customers?
It will be part of a more complex service.
Users will be approximately 1k max and we need to customize a web interface as mail client.
I need something with a good balancing between ease of setting up and features

 

[rliebsch]

Linux and Postfix are great. Easier than Sendmail. Smaller, faster, and more secure. Then you can use IPTables to block traffic on anything but 25, 80, and 443. Then install UW-IMAP. Then install Apache, PHP, and SquirrelMail.

You can even get fancy and put SQL on it and introduce group and shared calendars, bulletin boards, an array of plugins. SpamCop, Spam Assassin, etc.

You can probably run this on a "laptop" from the early 90s. Dirt Cheap. Rock Solid.

Robert Liebsch
Stone Yamashita Partners

http://www.stoneyamashita.com/