Searching for a Solaris Mail Server? 25
pipeb0mb asks: "The company I work for is looking to update our mail server. Currently, the hardware is a Sun Enterprise 450. It was to be used with iPlanet 5.01 (the bastard child of iPlanet, Sun 'SIMS' and Netscape Messaging Server). Unfortunately, iPlanet just will not run...to be more precise, it won't even INSTALL! iPlanet support is less than stellar. In the wake of this discovery, the mail service being utilized is SIMS 3.5 on a 250. However, it is old, and we are beyond capacity on users (we're up to 8000). To make it even more complicated, we need some additional features for our server?" The additional feature list isn't all that long, and it's fairly reasonble. Hit the link to check it out and feel free to offer suggestions, as always.
"Here's what our server needs to support:
- http interface (for webmail)
- IMAP
- POP3
- SMTP
- Relay filtering, both on the user level and the server level
- content filtering (optional)
- Web based management
- multiple domain ready.
Again, it must be a Solaris compatible...be it 2.6 or 8, preferably 8. So Slashdot, whaddya think? Any ideas?"
Re:Honestly now (Score:1)
If your only advice is RTFM, then why don't you go back to your l33t IRC channels, and leave the rest of the helpful, dedicated, interested members of the Slashdot community in peace.
Re:8?? (Score:1)
8?? (Score:1)
In fact, I'd probably not use Solaris 7 in a production environment. Well... maybe I _would_ use 7, but I'd keep a VERY CLOSE EYE on it.
8 is too new, and it's also significantly WEIRD. Go with 2.6 if you want that legendary Solaris stability. Make SURE you install ALL THE RECOMMENDED PATCHES.
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I think you might want to check out (Score:1)
G
Sendmail (Score:1)
Re:Communigate Pro from Stalker (Score:1)
IntraStore (Score:1)
http://intrastore.us.syntegra.com/
They supply if free for Linux (up to 250 users):
http://intrastore.us.syntegra.com/www/download.htm l
Re:8?? (Score:1)
I definitely must second this.
I've had no problems with 2.6 running on hundreds of machines. Solaris 2.7 seems to be an alright desktop environment, but it doesn't seem to perform as well on network operations as 2.6 (yes, everything is patched as recommended). I've heard rumours that someone broke something while updating the TCP/IP stack for IPv6.
2.8 seems to follow the tradition (disclaimer: I've only installed it on about a dozen boxes, about half production-grade.) Might be a good desktop OS, but it just doesn't seem to crank like 2.6. If you want an OS that feels like a cozy warm house in the middle of winter (i.e. comfortable and stable), go with 2.6. You won't be sorry.
Re:Honestly now (Score:1)
Why exactly does
Also, please note that pipeb0mb did not ask for "tech support", but rather suggestions from the
Look at Exim (Score:1)
It integrates well with either cyrus or UW-IMAP for POP/IMAP access. As for webmail stuff, take a look at the archives of the exim mailing list to see what people there have used and recommended. A good webmail system will simply be a front end to a good IMAP server, since IMAP does everything that webmail should do (accept for the HTTP interface).
Re:Why ? (Score:1)
Re:8?? (Score:1)
Re:Qmail (Score:2)
i don't know what happened, but something on it broke. i think it was the scsi card. it was replaced with a pIII something-or-other with 512megs of ram, and none of the customers even noticed.
i doubt sendmail or any other mta would be that nice on resources.
as for the question at hand, i'd seriously check out qmail. it's pretty easy to get up and running, and is excellent when the mail load picks up.
Blatant Commercial Plug (Score:2)
http://www.lotus.com/domino
It has all that, and more. Server runs on Linux, AS/400, S/390, AIX, OS/2, Sun Solaris, NT/2000, and HP-UX. Supports POP, IMAP, HTTP access, and also Notes native client (port 1352) if you're running a Mac or a PC with a Bill Gates OS (and even plagued Outlook will connect). It can be administered from the PC client, the web, or even from a command console (telnet/ssh). Includes clustering (amongst different OS's, even), failover, load balancing, transaction logging.....
Also nicely throws calendaring and scheduling into the ring, along with WebSphere unified login, and you can synch your PDA with it.
Communigate Pro from Stalker (Score:2)
It's not free, but the price is reasonable for your size operation - $4999 for up to 30,000 accounts, and includes unlimited mailing lists. That includes two years of upgrades, unlimited e-mail support, and a _very_ active mailing list that has a lot of very knowledgable users as well as frequent input from Stalker employees.
Sorry for sounding like a commercial, but we switched from Netscape Messaging Server a year ago and I can't believe how much better life is now :).
Anyway, Stalker is here [stalker.com], and the direct link for Communigate Pro is here [stalker.com]. Worth checking out!
Re:Honestly now (Score:2)
we don't want a cobbled together solution. We are the only ISP in our area (remote mountain town), a company that has been around for over 60 years in telecom. We can't afford to make a mistake.
Now, the beauty of Slashdot is that it is read by thousands of people with real world experience, day to day experience.
I've been here for a long time...I spend alot of time here...I value *some* of the opinions I read here. As far as I am concerned, 'Asking Slashdot' = 'asking a friend/usenet/irc'.
When you have a wealth of information, you utilize it. That's how things get done in the Real World [tm].
My postings here should not reflect on my employer.
Re:start with postfix/cyrus (Score:2)
start with postfix/cyrus (Score:2)
Honestly now (Score:2)
Stalker CommuniGate Pro (Score:2)
Take a look at it... I think you'll really like it. I sure do. Free demo too.
Try Postfix/Cyrus (Score:2)
Postfix is well-designed, small, high-performance, and very secure. I recently had to select a new mail server for our company, and it fit the bill perfectly.
There are a number of things that I like about Postfix, but one of the most noticable is its ease of configuration. There are just two configuration files, and they're very simple -- much simpler than even Apache's httpd.conf. One of the things that you can configure is relaying--for certain hosts, certain networks, or authenticated users.
For mailbox services, I would recommend Cyrus (http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/imapd/ [cmu.edu]). It's a very full-featured POP3/IMAP/KPOP server.
There are webmin modules for both Postfix and Cyrus, solving your web-based management problem.
Oops, scratch that -- with you being an ISP.... (Score:3)
I think the first step is to break your systems up a bit. A small-ish Linux box accepts deliveries from the world, and filters incoming (which can even be two boxes, with the second box doing virus filtering). Another small-ish Linux box makes outgoing deliveries. One mega-server is your IMAP server, and handles POP, and actually has the mail files on it. Another server is the web interface, and does all the CGI stuff, and makes the IMAP connections back to your mail server.
I think the real solution here is to break up your tasks. Handling everything on one box is troublesome. If it's multiple boxes, you can actually swap something out for maintenance if you need to.
Qmail (Score:4)
Re:Why ? (Score:4)
About three hours after I submitted this 'ask slashdot', we hit a breakthrough. Turns out that our error, which occcured when installing the IDA portion, was based on a configuration anomoly in resolv.conf.
(iPlanet support said that this would actually be added to the preinstall readme file. Nice. )We added two lines, changed one more, and BAM.
It's Working.
However, during the 6 weeks we had this problem, we learned about several interesting alternatives, and we are not totally adverse to changing, given the delay and support nightmare we just experienced.
Elbow Grease vs. $$$ (Score:4)
I've gone through this situation in several discussions for mid- and large-scale operations. Your answer will somewhat depend on how much money, time, and work you want to put into this system, with the usual tradeoff of ( more dollars ) = ( less ( time + effort ) ).
For a free solution, I've found that a sendmail-based solution works quite nicely on Solaris. We ran some internal mailservers with a combination of sendmail [sendmail.org] for smtp, qpopper [eudora.com] for pop3, apache [apache.org] and php [php.net] for web access, and ActiveState PerlMx [activestate.com] for mail filtering. There are many passable imapd programs that would fulfill your IMAP requirement, among other things, cyrus imapd [cmu.edu]
Don't be fooled, though; this took some elbow grease, and a little tweaking with sendmail and qpopper (mostly for the remote-administration bit; you don't want all of your customers in /etc/passwd on your server!)
If you'd prefer to just lay down a little cash to get a working solution out the door, Openwave [openwave.com] has a very reasonable email platform [openwave.com] or two. It seems like it supports everything you're looking for, above.
Also, don't forget that Sendmail, Inc. [sendmail.com] creates some very sophisticated sendmail-based products; it looks like Advanced Message Server may have all of the solutions you're looking for.