beermouse Posted June 20, 2007 Posted June 20, 2007 My apologies if this comes twice - all I got was a blank page when I clicked Submit. After a new record low uptime, the powers that be has decided to pull our email and webserver inhouse, and ordered an extra fully open internet connection for that, and 1 (yes, one whole 1!) server. The problem is now: what to put on it? It shall serve app. 600 email-accounts with POP3 and IMAP and Webmail access, a webserver with some sort of CMS, a ton of podcasts, some sort of SQL, maybe a possibility of hosting various students and teachers websites, and no doubt a few other things that they have forgot to tell me about. As usual, there is no budget, so although I am a point-and-click admin (OS/2 and Lantastic cert's, you know of any openings? 8O ), I guess it will have to be a free *NIX thingy, with which I have very little experience. The top priorities are easy user management (lots of people going through here every year), reliable backup and restore (preferrably down to single email level), and, if possible, a nice shiny point-and-click GUI. Any ideas/suggestions/questions? Beermouse
CyberNerd Posted June 20, 2007 Posted June 20, 2007 Zimbra = mail eduspaces = student collaboration (think educational myspace) moodle = vle plone/drupal/joomla = CMS for website. lots of RAM. Zimbra has a nice and shiny point and click gui and runs as an appliance, gui is dead simple but more complicated tasks are CLI. Backup needs to be scripted for the free version, but there is gui (inc individual mailboxes) for the network version, Tying it all together will need to be done manually, probably all you need to do is sort apache/mysql for the others.
linescanner Posted June 20, 2007 Posted June 20, 2007 Good examples of mail servers in schools include Linux based "Black Box" solutions Which can provide Imap/POP3 mail and webmail Moodle as the VLE with Elgg Joomla or Drupal as the CMS There are schools in Northants and Herts running kit like this. They are supported as black box solutions so Linux knowledge is not needed.
webman Posted June 20, 2007 Posted June 20, 2007 Zimbra recommends that nothing else should be run - eg. Zimbra server should be dedicated solely to it.
dave.81 Posted June 21, 2007 Posted June 21, 2007 Webserver is run by an outside company, email we use MDaemon has worked wonderfully for the past 4 years:)
Geoff Posted June 21, 2007 Posted June 21, 2007 Mail server and Secondary MX is Zimbra on Ubuntu. Primary MX is Exim on Ubuntu. We have many LAMP systems. They are, again, all Ubuntu.
Wizzer Posted June 21, 2007 Posted June 21, 2007 Zimbra recommends that nothing else should be run - eg. Zimbra server should be dedicated solely to it. I assume, given sufficient power, you could virtualise it though.
linescanner Posted June 21, 2007 Posted June 21, 2007 Geoff, how are you finding Zimbra ? What version are you running (free or paid for) ? I am keen to get some feed back from those using it in anger.
atsivakumar Posted June 22, 2007 Posted June 22, 2007 Hi, I am using Zimbra and have a good knowledge on the subject. It is better solution for you to have Zimbra for E-Mail and Collaboration. It has Anti-virus and Anti-spam included. Siva [email protected]
CyberNerd Posted June 22, 2007 Posted June 22, 2007 I am keen to get some feed back from those using it in anger. It sort of just does what it says on the tin really.The only downside is that if the web interface can be slow if the client is slow -easily fixed by using the basic client. Server requirements are quite high for a mail server. Other than that, we've had no issues - using free version since 3.x for testing (april 06) and 4.0.0 every single upgrade has been flawless, even with the modifications we made for content filtering, backups work, it's simple to set up, simple to use.
Geoff Posted June 22, 2007 Posted June 22, 2007 how are you finding Zimbra? It's working fine so far. We're slowly migrating staff acrross atm. What version are you running (free or paid for) ? The Opensource edition.
zag Posted June 22, 2007 Posted June 22, 2007 Don't skimp It's not worth it in the long run. Go windows 2003/exchange combo, you wont regret it.
webman Posted June 22, 2007 Posted June 22, 2007 Go windowss 2003/exchange combo, you wont regret it. Until you have to pay CALs, extra for web access, are locked into a proprietary format and experience the many issues people have with exchange on this forum. Making use of open source is not skimping.
CyberNerd Posted June 22, 2007 Posted June 22, 2007 Don't skimp Zimbra isn't the cheapskate option - It has more usefull features (to us) than exchange. The fact that it cost significantly less is a bonus.
Geoff Posted June 22, 2007 Posted June 22, 2007 Indeed, we couldn't afford the CALs to implement inhouse email for all our pupils (1386), 6th formers (295) and staff (211).
beermouse Posted June 27, 2007 Author Posted June 27, 2007 Hi again, all, and first of all thanks for all your inputs - 2nd, sorry for my absense. After alot of research and quick testing - and a meeting today with the guys that shall run the CMS/web, the beancounters and the person in charge for keeping it up and running (me ) we ended at: W2k3 OS Apache MySQL PHP Joomla hMailServer squirrelmail Can anybody see any obvious pitfalls in that? And what other things would be benefitial to add? (In this case more is better - the sooner this monstrosity is brought to its' knees the better :twisted: - I would really prefer to have it all split up on separate boxes.) 2ndly, does anybody know of any How-To's for a setup like this? I'd prefer not to run any of the many WAMP-setups I have seen the last couple of days, as they don't offer much possibility for keeping parts apart. Speaking of which, can anybody think up a sensible partitioning-scheme for this combination? Antivirus of some sort (I have licences for F-Secure) is a must since teachers, and at some time even students will be allowed to upload stuff, but I guess stuff will break quickly if I put F-Secure on the whole thing. Oh, and any suggestions towards a hostname for the system? Unfortunately QuiltOfCthulhu is already taken. Beermouse
linescanner Posted June 27, 2007 Posted June 27, 2007 Personally I would have gone for Ubuntu Postfix Cyrus Mailscanner Apache2 Spamassassin ClamAV Joomla Squirrelmail PHP5 MySQL But hey, mailservers are mailservers. Should just work. The above combination has been deployed by us for 35,000 users.
localzuk Posted June 27, 2007 Posted June 27, 2007 W2k3 OS Apache MySQL PHP Joomla hMailServer squirrelmail Quick question, why Windows? The rest, except hMailServer being a win app, are open source apps that are optimised to work in Linux. Why pay for a windows license to do something that should just as easily run perfectly on a linux box? I can understand the whole initial set up being more complex but once you get past that, your system will be more reliable. And it would also allow you to integrate nicely with your Active Directory for authentication, removing the need to set up accounts separately.
saundersmatt Posted June 27, 2007 Posted June 27, 2007 All I can say beermouse is you lucky b*st*rd: Long before (i.e. about 18 months) I left my last place, I trying to get email and web brought in house. I spoke to everybody that needed to be involved and they gave me the go-ahead to investigate a solution to the shitty webmail and crap webhost problem. I even surveyed all staff on their desired solution. I came up with a formal plan, submitted a work schedule to get the project implemented and asked for the cash for a decent spec server (£1500) and SDSL line to run it on (£2200). I got a reply of "we can't commit to that without seeing a demonstration". So, undeterred, off i trot that weekend and work on a demo at home. Onto one of my own machines goes, FreeBSD, Samba - for AD integration, postfix and dovecot for mail, apache, php, mysql. I roughly skin and config squirrelmail, horde, joomla and moodle just for extra icing. I take it back and show it off, only to be bombarded for the next six months with "can it do this, I can't spend the money if I can't see it doing this" everytime I meet previous stupid request. This despite the fact that year on year costs are less than the current external solutions. So, everytime a member of staff makes a complaint or comment about current solutions it is logged, and we ask them to complain to Mr High Ranking Idiot. Another few months rolls by, with no progress. Then shitty webmail is down for an entire week. Things finally start looking promising, "we've run out of money" is the response, "but we'll put the costings in for the next budget allocation". WAHOO I'm thinking, finally. So, around comes next budget time, obviously HRI has forgotten how it works by now, no problem I say, as it's been sat there working but not being used since the last time i showed it to him. So, he looks at it impressed, and tries to send mail to his personal e-mail address an email. I explain to him (for probably the 4 millionth time) that our current internet connection doesn't allow inbound connections or outbound on anything other than http, which is why an SDSL line is in the specification with an alternative of replacing our existing connection with a bonded line, for less money than the current costs. HRI then decides that we cannot commit to spending anything until "external access" has been tested, which cannot be done without spending any money. Hence, stuck in endless loop with me getting more and more p*ssed off with the amount of people complaining to me about existing poor services. Thusly, I am now working somewhere else. Yet to meet the dreaded HRI. Good luck mate, sorry to distract from your original post just needed to get that off my chest finally. I'd definately recommend going the open-source chain on a mail and web server. There is a reason that ISP's use it. Plus you will definately get more mileage out of your hardware than windows (especially exchange) solutions. Matt.
beermouse Posted June 29, 2007 Author Posted June 29, 2007 W2k3 OS Apache MySQL PHP Joomla hMailServer squirrelmail Quick question, why Windows? The rest, except hMailServer being a win app, are open source apps that are optimised to work in Linux. Why pay for a windows license to do something that should just as easily run perfectly on a linux box? I can understand the whole initial set up being more complex but once you get past that, your system will be more reliable. And it would also allow you to integrate nicely with your Active Directory for authentication, removing the need to set up accounts separately. Hi again - this is my first time trying the quote button - I hope it works out. The main reason for a windows box is that I have some sort of clue as to what goes on on those, and the thing shall be in use at day one after summerbreak - which I prefer spending at the beach, not in front of a test setup, frantically reading Linux for Dummies. Secondly, the thing will be sitting on a dedicated connection, servicing 2 different AD domains - neither of which I'd like to have exposed to the outside world. But it seems anything can happen - I am currently struggling to get Joomla to connect with MySQL, which wasn't a problem in my Ubuntu test setup, and it seems to me from the forums that anything can happen regarding Joomlas' licencing from version 1.5? Beermouse
localzuk Posted June 29, 2007 Posted June 29, 2007 The main reason for a windows box is that I have some sort of clue as to what goes on on those, and the thing shall be in use at day one after summerbreak - which I prefer spending at the beach, not in front of a test setup, frantically reading Linux for Dummies. I can understand this but feel that you are thinking that the system will be more complex than it is. Setting up such a system shouldn't take you more than a day, and the tutorials exist to cover it all already on the web - it is just a case of following the instructions. Secondly, the thing will be sitting on a dedicated connection, servicing 2 different AD domains - neither of which I'd like to have exposed to the outside world. I don't understand you here, what do you mean? This wouldn't matter if it were a windows box or a linux box. Neither domain would be exposed to the outside world. But it seems anything can happen - I am currently struggling to get Joomla to connect with MySQL, which wasn't a problem in my Ubuntu test setup, and it seems to me from the forums that anything can happen regarding Joomlas' licencing from version 1.5? Interesting, what have you read about the licecnsing? Joomla is a GPL and as such new versions of it, if they use any of the old code, have to be released as GPL. Also, its usage on the net would drop suddenly if it went non-gpl...
Geoff Posted June 29, 2007 Posted June 29, 2007 But it seems anything can happen - I am currently struggling to get Joomla to connect with MySQL, which wasn't a problem in my Ubuntu test setup, and it seems to me from the forums that anything can happen regarding Joomlas' licencing from version 1.5? Interesting, what have you read about the licecnsing? Joomla is a GPL and as such new versions of it, if they use any of the old code, have to be released as GPL. Also, its usage on the net would drop suddenly if it went non-gpl... He's talking about this: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/06/joomla_sticks_w.html
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