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Looking for an email server solution

N

nsafreak

Diamond Member
Well it's time for me to get away from the complete overkill that is my current email server setup. I'm currently running Windows 2000 Server SP5 with Exchange 2003. Since Windows 2000 is getting to EOL this year and I really don't want to spend a bunch of cash for Windows 2008 R2 (unless somebody can point me to a deal on Windows 2003) I've decided to simplify my email server setup. Right now I'm really running it to learn about Active Directory and an exchange but there's only so much that you can do when you don't have a bunch of actual clients plugged into it. I also have it running DNS duties on the network along with some media streaming and file serving. I know I won't have any issues finding services/programs to do the same thing under Linux. What I want to know is the best solution for what I want to do:

1) Have it gather emails from multiple POP3 email accounts (and hotmail too if its somehow possible) into one IMAP account or MAPI account.
2) Have anti-virus scanning built into the server or as a plugin (yes I have client side scanning as well but it would be nice to have)
3) Have seemless Outlook 2003/2010 integration
4) Have some way of importing my exchange store of all of my emails into it

I've looked into Zimbra and I may possibly go that route and just add on Clamware and SpamAssassin although I wish you didn't have to pay for a version that got you the MAPI plugin so I'd have to go with IMAP support if I went that route. Any other suggestions?

Yes I do realize this could all be done client side but since I already have a server for the other duties that I plan on continuing to use I figure that having it do email wouldn't hurt.
 
I use Postfix (does smtp) and dovecot (does pop/imap) and they are pretty good. Keep in mind most Linux email solutions are much more complicated to setup, though more powerful. In your case you'll want to use IMAP as it will be the closest thing to MAPI (exchange protocol). You can use fetchmail to fetch mail from pop3 accounts. Spamassassin is a good spam filter once you add your own custom rules.

A full AD exchange environment can be up and running in about 15 minutes, while a Linux system can take a few days of research and configuring.
 
15 minutes? You can't even install Windows in 15 minutes, let alone set up AD and then track down all the dependencies for Exchange.

If you use Debian or Ubuntu, all you have to do after installing postfix with apt is "sudo dpkg-reconfigure postfix" and it will ask a few questions that any Exchange admin should have no problem answering. In fact, I think the latest Ubuntu already asks you the questions during the installation. Either way, check out the Ubuntu server guides for Postfix and dovecot and they should have you up and running in an afternoon (that is, assuming you already have some general understanding of linux/Ubuntu).

FYI, I do concur with the recommendation for Postfix and Dovecot.
 
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Brazen said:
15 minutes? You can't even install Windows in 15 minutes, let alone set up AD and then track down all the dependencies for Exchange.
Click to expand...

I meant, once the app is installed. It basically "just works" while Linux may require more configuration at first. Though in the end Linux is more powerful and less limited. No pesky license limitations, or mailbox store size limitations to worry about.
 
RedSquirrel said:
I use Postfix (does smtp) and dovecot (does pop/imap) and they are pretty good. Keep in mind most Linux email solutions are much more complicated to setup, though more powerful. In your case you'll want to use IMAP as it will be the closest thing to MAPI (exchange protocol). You can use fetchmail to fetch mail from pop3 accounts. Spamassassin is a good spam filter once you add your own custom rules.

A full AD exchange environment can be up and running in about 15 minutes, while a Linux system can take a few days of research and configuring.
Click to expand...

A squirrel that does not use squirrel mail? Are you nuts? 😉
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'll go ahead with the suggestion of postfix & dovecot with a webmin frontent. I like CLI as much as the next guy but there are times when I'm feeling a bit on the lazy side. So sue me 😛. In any case I was wondering if anybody had a suggestion of an easy way to transfer my Exchange message store over to dovecot somehow other than forwarding all of the emails to another account of mine like gmail.
 
sourceninja said:
How many accounts are we talking about? Why not just google apps for business?
Click to expand...

Another option might be having Exchange hosted for you. You can meet all of your requirements for less than $11/month for a 5GB of hosting, including a MS Outlook/Entourage licenses, spam/virus protection, etc. Then just setup a small box locally to do your DNS, file serving, etc.

Good luck!
 
A full AD exchange environment can be up and running in about 15 minutes, while a Linux system can take a few days of research and configuring.
Click to expand...

You mean like the one you had with the time keeping problems? Yea, AD is a little more complicated than you make it out to be. And Exchange will take a helluva lot more than 15 minutes to setup and requires more babysitting in the long term.
 
Nothinman said:
You mean like the one you had with the time keeping problems? Yea, AD is a little more complicated than you make it out to be. And Exchange will take a helluva lot more than 15 minutes to setup and requires more babysitting in the long term.
Click to expand...

I'm not really taking into account reliability or tweaking, just being able to connect to it with Outlook and start sending and receiving email. But yes it does require more babysitting and more longterm care, and has lot of other issues, mostly limitations and crap like that.

But a Linux mail server (or anything else really) takes much longer to setup and get going. It's not point and click like exchange, you need to do lot of research to find a decent tutorial that matches your distro, then follow the instructions to edit the config files (or make them - I've seen distros that don't even include config files, you have to create them), then it wont work right away, so you have to troubleshoot why, and do more research etc etc... much more involved process, but in the end it is worth it. Just backup all the config files to avoid going through all that again. 😱
 
I setup a imap/smtp server a few weeks ago for a classroom to use to teach seniors how to use email clients. Using ubuntu 8.04 server. It took me 15 minutes to setup after the install of the OS. I had never setup a imap server on ubuntu before.

I even went so far as to secure smtp and to require ssl for all connections (although it can't send mail outside itself so that doesn't matter).

Setting things up is always easy. Setting them up properly for real use is usually complicated. I doubt I could setup a imap/smtp server in 15 minutes that was going to replace the email system of our college.
 
But a Linux mail server (or anything else really) takes much longer to setup and get going
Click to expand...

Not really. Installing postfix and Dovecot only takes a minute and there's virtually no configuration required.
 
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