Linux to MS Exchange mail gateway

[d0d1]

Hi,
Being a bit of a Linux newbie I was hoping that someone could advise me on my best course of action for this scenario.
My company has an MS Exchange 5.5 server which has been erratic to say the least over the past couple of months, we have lost two days work due to corrupted IS databases. The solution I have been tasked with finding is this:
Put a Linux based mail gateway in place to handle mail delivery to the internal Exchange server. However they also want this server to store all messages that pass through for up to 24 hours so that, in the event of a failure between backups of the Exchange server, then any mail that may potentially have been lost is retrievable from the Linux box. I have been looking at sendmail and postfix which appear to be similar in end product, however I'm not sure how exactly to approach setting these up to do the above or is there an alternative. All suggestions much appreciated

Thanks

 

[pcunix]

I don't quite understand what you have in mind here.

On the one hand you say you are replacing Exchange but then it seems you aren't.

Why don't you just dump the Exhange? Pick up the email from the Linux box directly.


I think I'd use procmail to make a copy of messages, but it doesn't make a lit of sense to me unless the copy goes OFF the machine.
Tony Lawrence
SCO Unix/Linux Resources

http://pcunix.com

tony@pcunix.com

 

[ifincham]

Hi,





Co-incidental this should come up - I've just been reading this interesting story about the 'reliability' of exchange -->

http://www.networknews.co.uk/News/1128367

I'm a bit confused too. What's the advantage in keeping exchange ? Presumably its just for the calendaring & extra 'groupware' bits that you get with outlook clients and an exchange back-end ?





Anyway have a look at this howto -->

http://www.arrayservices.com/projects/Exchange-HOWTO/html/book1.html

Hope this helps

 

[d0d1]

Thanks Guys,
it is indeed as ifincham thought, replacing Exchange completely is pretty much a non-starter as too many people use the calendaring and groupware bits. There is also the issue of not having an inhouse linux guru type person as I am the only sys admin and I don't know enough about linux to run a full messaging solution on the platform. I hoped to be able to store a copy of the mail passing through the linux MTA for up to 24 hours after the original has been delivered to exchange.

The goal of this idea is primarily to reduce downtime in the event of a failure without spending any money on new machines. If I could get this to work as I want it to then I could pretty much guarantee that the most downtime possible in an IS database failure is the length of a restore operation.

 

[pcunix]

OK.

But you could leave Exchange running for calendaring and whatever and have the Linux box handle the email 100%.

And pray tell why a problem that knocked a company out for two days has to be fixed at no cost? That's pretty silly.

You can get gui based administration for Linux Email. See for example

http://pcunix.com/esmith.html

(this is a commercial product that I happen to sell but I'm NOT trying to sell it to you- just pointing out an example of easy to administer software. There are probably free equivalents; I just don't happen to know about them).



Tony Lawrence
SCO Unix/Linux Resources

http://pcunix.com

tony@pcunix.com