Migrating from linux to Mac Os X mail

[robk]

We have a Xserve running OS X server 10.5, 2Gb ram, three 1Tb Hdds and quad core 2.8Ghz processor sitting in our server rack handling OD managed prefs for 15 mac clients, jabber, mac printing and two smb shares.

 

We also have a very old suse linux box running squirrelmail, cyrus, mailscanner & postfix which is running on a sempron 2600+, 80Gb HDD and a gig of ram.

 

Our mail system is so slow its got to the unusable point, and as os X runs the same components I am considering moving mail over to the Xserve. Question is, anyone else doing this?

 

Is the Xserve likely to cope?

 

Given the HDD space is there, it seems a waste to buy more hardware to do this, but I don`t want to stress the Xserve in the process.

 

Any migrration tips would be greatly recieved.

 

Thanks

 

RobK

[webman]

I experienced a similar issue a few years ago. If your server uses the Mbox format for all mail accounts (where all messages are stored in a single file) then SquirrelMail would have to load this into memory each time a user logs in. When all users constantly access email it's a huge strain.

 

If you just migrate it to another server, it may perform slightly better but it won't be tackling the main cause.

[robk]

I experienced a similar issue a few years ago. If your server uses the Mbox format for all mail accounts (where all messages are stored in a single file) then SquirrelMail would have to load this into memory each time a user logs in. When all users constantly access email it's a huge strain.

 

If you just migrate it to another server, it may perform slightly better but it won't be tackling the main cause.

 

Its not Mbox format (Cyrus uses it's own file format for mailstores), so I suspect this is not the issue. The current server has a very old Riser filesystem, which I suspect (due to the age of the install) may be causing serious issues with performance.

 

 

 

RobK

[HodgeHi]

Before you do the migration you may want to look at the upgrade from 10.5 to 10.6. Why I hear you ask. 10.6 has moved from Cyrus over to dovecot. And from the point of OS X it seems to be a lot better implemented. I have noticed a small performance improvement over the Cyrus service. I use imap connectivity with ad users authing using login type over ssl.