Exchange - why is it so stupid?

[DMcCoy]

I have after many years thrown myself into getting exchange running here. My mail server as of three weeks ago was 8 years old (well bits of it!)

 

So I have exchange running, with users, email addresses and email. Filtering is sorted, mail is going in and out!

 

Despite this I find myself constantly at odds with the way exchange works.

 

The most stupid thing ever: The Global Address list!

 

I now have 3 GAL, which *mostly* work and display different lists to different groups. This is very fun, for example if you can't see yourself in the address list you can't open your mailbox! Very unhelpful if you want to create a limited list for students, as they will all have to appear in it!

 

Lots of other things are annoying, like changing exchange attributes, I haven't found a way to do multiple ones at once.

 

So how do other people use exchange, and do you also find it a pain?

[Ric_]

You can script Exchange modifications

 

I give the people basic functionality. I stick with the single global address list and limit the number of recipients. Anybody abuses the system by bulk mailing and they lose their email - this means that they have to bring their work in on some form of removable media and have to put up with me transferring the data for them.

[Geoff]

I find the best solution is to not use exchange.

[DMcCoy]

I might just poke around with horde/imp again as a exchange front end - no silly address lists, mapi. Just imap!

[spc-rocket]

I find that other non exchange emails systems lacks documentation and uses linux or some other open source crap. What do people do when they haven't got skills of linux or unix or other silly OSes.

 

The thing with exchange is that you need to reserch on the solution and play around with it, i think its very flexibile esp. exchange 2003.

 

Ashok.

[Geoff]

I find that other non exchange emails systems lacks documentation

 

And where is the behaviour of the GALs as described by DMcCoy documented?

 

and uses linux or some other open source crap.

 

Presumably you mean *BSD?

 

What do people do when they haven't got skills of linux or unix or other silly OSes.

 

Zimbra and Scalix are open source groupware stacks. They are supported by companies of the same name commerically. All you have to do is throw money at them. Alternatively you can seek employee's who have Linux experience, hence my employment at my local secondary school.

[budgester]

I find that other non exchange emails systems lacks documentation

Ever looked at an O'reilly manual ?

 

and uses linux or some other open source crap.

Sounds like you've kept an open mind about this.

 

What do people do when they haven't got skills of linux or unix or other silly OSes.

Probably go around baiting people that do have skills with linux or unix or other silly OS'es

The thing with exchange is that you need to reserch on the solution and play around with it, i think its very flexibile esp. exchange 2003.

And this differs from any other solution that you have described above in what way ?

 

I really hope you keep good backups.

[bossman]

We have webmail and have been using for approx 3 years now with no problems at all staff love it. The only problems i have is with the admin and headteacher prefering to use outlook as the mail client and this is when the trouble starts. So you can understand that i am a little reluctant to move towards exchange which i gather is now 2007 wow!! but will it work like webmail has worked for the last 3 years (i doubt it but will keep an open mind), as for "open source crap" which is not i think crap but only the person who does not use it. I have been running windows 2k for 5 years now but i am learning linux as i go along for i see a future where linux has a bigger and better market place and of course it is free. So all you non believers out there "SHUT UP" and get learning.

[Geoff]

What is your existing webmail system bossman?

 

Squirrelmail + Postfix + Cyrus IMAP on a Linux box would statisfy your current webmail users and allow 3rd party mail clients like outlook to connect.

[webman]

Geoff: The webmail system he speaks of is a plain centos imap server & postfix, with Squirrelmail for everyone except the Outlook-lovers who do connect directly to the server.

[Geoff]

I fail to see what the problem is then...

[malcolm_kapadia]

I've set up exchange where I work and have had absolutely no problems with it.

 

We have it running on a nice Xeon server with fast scsi drives and 2gig ram.

 

I've found it the easiest thing to administer and manage, and the staff find it the easiest thing to use.

[webman]

Because of something to do with Microsoft sponsorship through our specialist status. Sales person showed off the "groupware" function of Exchange server to our "Strategic Leader for ICT", and we have an "open cupboard" of MS licenses apparently.

[budgester]

Debian, Squirrelmail, Exim and Cyrus IMAP here.

 

All running on a 700mhz Pentium with 256meg of ram.

 

It keeps up with anything I can throw at it.

[GrumbleDook]

FirstClass at the moment ... but we will be moving over to Exchange 2003 during this year (and Sharepoint for the VLE aspect).

 

FirstClass is very powerful ... but takes a horrendous amount of work to make it powerful and I just don't have that time.

 

Exchange 5.5 was ok, 2000 was better and 2003 is a good working product ... but with a few quirks. Then again *all* software has quirks ... some are acceptable to most, some aren't.

[DMcCoy]

The problem is exchange has some nice features, but I do notice that it is more enterprised based, where email is simply about communication - where as schools would be more geared towards *controlled* communication.

 

I just find myself trying to do something obvious and then find out that it can't be done or is not a normal option.

 

The address lists have taken more time to get right than anything else. If you follow microsofts instructions to the letter, it doesn't actually work - at least it didn't on mine, and I've not gone out of my way to change anything.

 

Its more a combination of outlook and exchange, and outlooks insistance on displaying address lists even if it is denied list access to them, the order in which it picks them up. The fact that you can't connect to your mailbox unless you aren't hidden from the address list is a particular annoyance.

 

Another great example, if the allowed GAL is empty, outlook falls back to the default GAL, students are denied read access to a number of staff objects in my AD, so they simply end up with a very long list of completely empty lines of addresses!

 

Still after spending many hours testing lots of different permissions with the All address lits and GAL I have different sets for different groups of people.

 

Oh and should you remove inherited permissions from an address list remember to put the exchange server objects back, otherwise it can't build them! (Took a little while to find that one)

 

Oh and I got the CMW to setup mandatory profile users outlook accounts (eventually - see the part about having to be on the GAL to find ones mailbox)

 

The reason I am using outlook is that I don't want students to get into staff email accounts via webmail, so it is secured with a client certificate. This will be worked around if I do use an alternate front end. I have spent many long days getting imp working so I've got the hang of it now.

 

On a related AD note, I have finally got around to complete delegation of the relevant OUs in AD, so none of us are administrators anymore (delegated within exchange too to allow mailbox creation by us it techs). Something I should have done a long time ago

[john]

I like exchange, Exchange 2007 is looking AMAZING! the web shots are ace I cannot wait for OVA