secman Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 I hope I haven't submitted this already, got interupted..... We are having serious performance problems with our LGfL (London Grid for Learning) setup and this is preventing staff teaching e-mail. We have been asked to look into the possibility of setting up a webmail based e-mail service internally on our IIS server (IIS 5.0) Is anyone aware of a free server that we can download and install. We would favour IIS but could go to a *nix based product on Apache if that's all there is. Thanks Alan
Norphy Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 I'd suggest going the Zimbra route. It's free and relatively easy to set up. Only problem is that it does require a linux server.
Guest Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 Yeh Zimbra, or http://www.scalix.com/ for *nix http://atmail.com/ looks great but is a pay for solution I have a Mercury Mail / Squirel Mail setup at one site and works ok and tis free
CyberNerd Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 Again, Zimbra - we have one here for 1650 student accounts. It was simple to setup and has been reliable (only 6month in). We only use the ajax web interface, but it can also do pop/imap and there is a commercial outlook mapi plugin if needed. I've got some homemade mods for it (autocreate users from AD, email content filter,backup scripts) if needed. Scalix is another one to watch: http://www.scalix.com/
secman Posted October 16, 2006 Author Posted October 16, 2006 Thanks for the responses guys. It looks like Zimbra is worth a serious look. Can one of you give me an idea of what spec of PC you are running this beastie on, particularly Mr Cybernerd as it is being used by 1650+ users like we would want. Also what version of linux are you using? we have a CD for UMBUNTU to try if thats OK. Thanks again Alan
Norphy Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 We're running it on a Dual Opteron 244 (1.8GHz) with 1GB RAM atm, that serves ~1100 users. No idea what the load is like at the moment, things are still in the preliminary testing stages for us. They recommend at least 2GB RAM though and seperate disks for the indexes and mailboxes. /edit It's worth mentioning that the version for Ubuntu is still in Beta. It probably works perfectly well but Zimbra haven't announced it as stable as of yet. If I were you, I'd choose a different distro. We're running it on SuSE 10.0, I recall Geoff saying he's running it on CentOS.
Guest Guest Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 Personally ive found anything web based is best suited to linux. If your like me and are just starting out in linux and web then id recommend having a look at xampp. Its for both windows and linux and is a test bed for your webhosting/mail. It comes with everything you need from apache, mysql and mercury mail. You simply add whatever service you need to it. Ive found its great to run on my windows workstation to try out a few differant apps before setling on one and building my linux machine http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html
CyberNerd Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 Dual Intel® Xeon CPU 2.80GHz 2GB Ram. Centos 4.4 From monitoring the load is extremly low, but due to lack of use rather than performance of the server. - I think that the kids don't like using the email system because we filter key words (swearing) to prevent bullying, so they think we're actually reading all their mail - load can be as low as 40 mails per day sometimes. We also have other systems (file uploader) for the kids to transfer files to teacher. Most of the load on Ajax applications runs on the client side, if the server does get loaded its possible to load balance zimbra onto a cluster @norphy - is the 64bit upto speed yet or are you running in 32?
Norphy Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 I'm running the 32 bit version. There wasn't a 64 bit version for SuSE when I installed it and after downloading and installing SuSE I really couldn't be bothered to download 64bit Centos
tarquel Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 Personally ive found anything web based is best suited to linux. If your like me and are just starting out in linux and web then id recommend having a look at xampp. Its for both windows and linux and is a test bed for your webhosting/mail. It comes with everything you need from apache, mysql and mercury mail. You simply add whatever service you need to it. Ive found its great to run on my windows workstation to try out a few differant apps before setling on one and building my linux machine http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html xampp is a great system BUT remember that it is only designed to be used as a testing server, and NOT as a production server. Alot of security is missing from it, to help with easy of use when testing - so dont use it for live / production sites. Just so you know Nath
djm968 Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 I know you are looking for a no cost option but Exchange 2003 with OWA is nice option if you can afford a few hundred pounds for the Licensing. I have installed this at many sites and with RPC over HTTP configured you can connect to your exchange mail server with the full outlook client anywhere in the world. Nix is by far the best free option though.
Geoff Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 Exchange is looking dated when compared to Zimbra/Scalix
webman Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 Exchange is looking dated when compared to Zimbra/Scalix Not to mention that it is non-standard compliant in some areas.
indie Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 Damn right, IMP+Horde=Great free Webmail If anyone wants a demo account on one of my servers let me know.
DMcCoy Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 IMP+Horde is great, unless you happen to be upgrading from an 18 month old cvs version to a current release. That was a fun weekend
secman Posted October 17, 2006 Author Posted October 17, 2006 mmmmm. Thanks again for all the advice. As I have said we are Linux newbies so can someone let me have a bit more detail about qmail, IMP & horde etc. Thanks Alan
Midget Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 Best intro is to have a look here http://www.flatmtn.com/computer/Linux-EmailServer.html A nice little semi-basic step by step guide to Setting Up a Linux Email Server in an NT Domain I shall be doing something similar myself over the next month if I get some time* except I'm considering using some desktop app (outlook/pegasys/thunderbird) which ever one is the easiest to deploy * atm I'm trying to get the PoS Lisol registration system we've adopted working (against my complaints of it being a step backwards from BromCom - esp for firedrills, we now have no way of doing them other than printing off a full attendance register in the AM and the PM - 34sheets each) oh yeah, and the PoS Nelson Thornes software.... *goes off to educational software forum* Midget
Norphy Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 If you're as inexperienced with Linux as I am, I'd seriously suggest going the Zimbra route. It is honestly this easy: Install Linux with a minimal install. Make sure all the dependant components are installed (Fetchmail, GMP and a couple of others) Make sure that Postfix is disabled if it is part of the Linux install Copy the Zimbra installer to the Linux server Run the installer. Thats it. Everything is set up for you by the Zimbra installer, database, HTML server, MTA, everything. Plus you get a web interface that beats the pants of Squirrelmail. After that, you need to set up your users but that is quite trivial. Zimbra will authenticate against your AD as well so there is no need for your users to remember two passwords.
CyberNerd Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 yes its free but some words of warning with this, the free version doesnt have any backup capability built in and doesnt work with outlook mapi connector (Imap should be ok, but outlook calendars wont work). To get a backup with the free version youll need to start learning some linux, its pretty easy and i have some scripts to shutdown and backup - to do live backups on the free version install linux on an LVM volume ause LVM snapshots - install linux on an LVM volume (I read this after I installed on a mirrored ext3). The Zimbra forums are definately worth a look.
Midget Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 /me rubs chin. This might be actually worth a look if it really is less hassle, which would be good when I leave and someone non linux literate has to pick it up. Surely for backup you can just set it to copy the mailbox file/s to a NAS and then backup that periodically?
CyberNerd Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 Surely for backup you can just set it to copy the mailbox file/s to a NAS and then backup that periodically? yes and no. Zimbra isnt just a mail server - it runs a mysql database, and ldap server. Having read some forums on this I concluded that live copying isn hte way forward unless its done by LVM snapshots. My method is to shut down the server at 3am and rsync the /opt/zimbra directory to another disk and restart the zimbra service. (then compress it to another server after the zimbra service restarted to save downtime). Without the shutdown/LVM (apparenltly) the databases/ldap get corrupted and restore gets impossible.
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now