Is this setup possible with scalix?

[majdi]

Hi,

We are looking at installing a mail server at work. We have 300 users that will be accessing the server to send and receive emails. We also need to share a global address book and have a backup for all emails.

Our users are using a variety of email client software (Outlook, Outlook Express and Thunderbird). They are configured to connect to our overseas mail server using POP3 and SMTP.

For our new setup we would like to have a local mail server (using Scalix) which will connect to our overseas mail server (main mail server using Exim) to send and receive all emails. Our users on the LAN will connect to our local mail server to send and receive emails.

Is this setup possible with scalix? Also, can I import an address book into the global/shared address book of the Scalix Server?

Thanks.

[btisdall]

Yes, you can do this with Scalix just as you can with any MTA.

Of course the Scalix groupware functionality such as shared cals will only be available to users connected directly to Scalix.

[majdi]

Thanks btisdall,

So, Scalix (As our Local mail server) can be configured to connect to our overseas mail server using POP3 & SMTP to send and receive emails without the need to install 3rd party software.

I'm asking this because I saw other posts with people trying to do this using fetchmail.

Just to make things clear, here is the scenario;

A staff member joins our company and a new email account is created for him on our main mail server (example@senario.com) and our Scalix Local mail server. Emails sent to this address go to our main mail server, our Scalix Local mail server will connect using POP3 to our main server and retrieve these emails for the user on our LAN.

This user is on our LAN using Thunderbird connecting to our Scalix local mail server using IMAP or POP3. He sends and receives all his emails through the Scalix local mail server. If an email is sent from one of our LAN users to another user on our LAN the Scalix server should deliver this email without going to the internet cloud to reach our main server.

Thanks again.

[Valerion]

You will need fetchmail to get mail from your main server to the local Scalix server. However, with only POP3 most of your groupware functionality will be lost, as the protocol does not support it.

Why don't you make Scalix your main mail server, taking all the POP3 retrievals out of the way?

[majdi]

Thanks Valerion,

The reason we would have this setup is because of the instability of the Internet connection at our location. We have users from different locations connecting to the main mail server hosted in the US. If we have the main server hosted locally and our internet connection goes down none of our users will be able to access the server.

Keeping our main server up and running with Scalix serving our LAN users is also good for contingency. If the Local Scalix server goes down our LAN users will only need to reconfigure their email client to connect to our main server.

It seems like a lot of users are having problems with fetchmail, how stable is it? How many users can it handle?

We currently have a local mail server for sending and receiving emails on the LAN. This is for internal communication only. Users wanting to communicate externally will need an account setup on our main mail server, this means their email client will have two email accounts (two email addresses) one for internal and one for external. We wanted to use Scalix to have one system instead of two and our LAN users will need only one email address to communicate internally and externally. The intended solution will also centralize external communication, having the Scalix server communicating with our main server instead of each user on our LAN connecting to it.

I guess this would be an advantage Exchange has over Scalix. It’s really easy to have this setup on Exchange.

Thanks again.

[majdi]

So, there is no way of having this setup with a standard Scalix installation and the need for fetchmail is a must? Has anyone had this kind of setup? Will the local mail server be stable running fetchmail and Scalix? How many users can fetchmail handle?

[adhodgson]

Hi,

Exchange cannot do this also - i.e, download POP3 mails from another server, and put them in the relevant mailbox. The SBS pack from Microsoft comes with the POP3 connecter, which is like what Fetchmail does.

The truth is yes you can do this with Scalix and Fetchmail, but there are issues. If a user on your Scalix mail server tries to send to a user who does not have an account on the Scalix server, but has an account on your US mail server, then depending on the configuration, this mail will probably bounce, because Scalix believes it is serving the relevant FQDN. This goes for any mail server, not just Scalix, but there are ways round this.

I think you are making your setup very complex, and could run into problems in the future with such a setup. I read some Exchange newsgroups, and this is quite a common question, and the answer is always the same "Make Exchange your primary mail server,, loose the external POP3 mailboxes".

Andrew.

[majdi]

Hi,

I have Scalix successfully installed on a test server. Is there a link explaining how to have such a setup configured on Scalix with fetchmail. I tried searching but there is a lot of conflicting information.

Please help.

System info;

Running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 (i586)
Running Linux linux-sbm7 2.6.16.21-0.8-smp #1 SMP Mon Jul 3 18:25:39 UTC 2006 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
Running Scalix-11.2.0-GA-core-sles10-intel.tgz