Scalix Forums

We are evaulating Scalix with (currently) a single domain whose mail we are forwarding to the Scalix server on our LAN. This is working fine and we can send and recieve to other internal domains and externally.

I have discussed the possibility of adding other domains to the server, with one of the guys at Scalix. It appears that we can add more domains for receiving mail, but we must still send from the default domain. This is fine for most of our customers (we are an ISP) but there are some who have several domains and may wish to choose which of their accounts to send mail from.

Also, as have a large number of customers each with their own domains, it would appear that we would need to purchase an individual server for each of them, if we were to roll Scalix out across all our customers. Is this the case?

Hope somebody can enlighten me on this one.

Many thanks

S Williams

Dear S. Williams,

there are several parts to your story; first one is that a single Scalix server instance can certainly handle multiple domains; actually, Scalix does not even think or care about domains at all, it assigns users individual SMTP addresses, where every user has one primary SMTP address (used for sending) and any number of secondary eMail addresses (for which he can receive mail).

Also, Scalix allows you to create multiple Mailnodes for users on a single server; these are logical structures. SMTP address generation rules are bound to mailnodes, so when you create a user "on a particular mailnode", he will get a generated default address to your liking.

Third, Scalix Server is able to handle multiple instances of itself on a single system; every instance is a completely independent Scalix system, with a separate directory, separate Message store directory tree and separate virtual IP address. This feature is available in Scalix server right now, but due to some complexities in the installation not fully supported and documented. We are working on improving this and will support running multiple instances fully in the next release, later this year. The number of instances on a single server is only limited by available resources, CPU, Memory, Disk, very much like an Oracle server with multiple database instances.

There is currently no easy way though to allow a single user on a single instance of Scalix to select his From: Address. Reason for this is actually by design; Scalix is designed to be a corporate eMail system and such systems usually have quite strict rules how they want their user's to be seen from the outside world, including the "official" email address of the person.

Sending with multiple identities is available partly through delegation (send on behalf), partly through Non-corporate client apps (i.e. IMAP) in which you can set your sender address on the client side. Of course, this can still be limited/security-controlled in the server.

If you describe the exact use case scenario in a bit more detail, it seems that we could probably come up with a system design that suits your needs.

You will most probably not have to go with any additional hardware and/or licenses.

Cheers,
Florian.

The scenario is as follows (for our largest customer)

They have several different domains, and some of their users have email accounts on each of these domains. For example user1 may have an email account user1@domain1.com and also user1@domain2.com and user1@domain3.com. He will want to receive mail sent to any of these addresses, all in the same convenient interface- either a POP3 / IMAP client such as Outlook or through the webmail interface.

Now he will also want to SEND mail out from his chosen interface, from whichever one of these domain accounts he chooses. For example, he may widh to send one mail from user1@domain1.com, and then perhaps another mail from user1@domain2.com.

Can Scalix do this? If not, what is the closest it can come to facilitating these requirements?

Also, if it cannot, then I suspect we might have to have different servers for different customers, because each of our customers will have their own domain (some will have more than one) and therefore will need to send out mail from that domain. If we had various customers all on the same Scalix server, we would also need that server to have the ability to send mail out from a number of different domains.

If we had to purchase a server per customer (or worse still, per domain) then this would not be commercially viable.

I hope this helps describe the issue- can someone please assist?

Anyone able to assist with this?

SWilliams,

what you want to achieve is easily possible using a POP/IMAP based client with Scalix Server as the backend. If you want to use Outlook or our own SWA Web Client, situation becomes a little more complex.

I'd like to work with you to understand your full set of requirements; can you please contact us at support@scalix.com, ask them to forward me your contact details and I'll be in touch with you!

Thanks, Cheers,
Florian.

Hello Florian,

florian wrote:Also, Scalix allows you to create multiple Mailnodes for users on a single server; these are logical structures. SMTP address generation rules are bound to mailnodes,

So does this mean that in the context of hosting mail for several different domains we should could create nodes for each domain?
Doing so would mainly have the impact of simplifying administration of these and allowing admin delegation, right ?

Thanks,
Serge

ssozonoff wrote:Doing so would mainly have the impact of simplifying administration of these and allowing admin delegation, right ?

And I guess this would also allow us to have a user with the same name like Mr. Foo Bar for a different domain without having to do something like:

Foo.Bar
Foo.Bar1

So the name is unique per Node.

Serge

You are right in that this would allow for "duplicate" names (first, last) as those only need to be unique on one mailnode. However, you would need to make sure that they can be distinguised somehow in the address book as there the information displayed would mainly be the display name.

It will not make administration much easier, actually, as currently admin rights cannot be limited to a particular mailnode.

-- f.

florian wrote:You are right in that this would allow for "duplicate" names (first, last) as those only need to be unique on one mailnode. However, you would need to make sure that they can be distinguised somehow in the address book as there the information displayed would mainly be the display name.

It will not make administration much easier, actually, as currently admin rights cannot be limited to a particular mailnode.

-- f.

How, then, would one best manage this scenario? It is desired to have multiple mail nodes with duplicate first,last name in each node (eg jsmith@domain1; jsmith@domain2). It is not desired to have each domain visible to the other from the perspective of the system directory (ie it is not desired for domain1 to see domain2 users via directory search).

Please advise how this would be accomplished.

Thanks in advance.

What you're asking for is the ability to host multiple domains separate from each other.

As Scalix is not designed for hosting services, this is not possible with the current software. If you're looking to do this, you should consider running separate servers or waiting until the next major release when we will be providing support for running multiple instances on the same machine.

Cheers

Dave

ScalixSupport wrote:What you're asking for is the ability to host multiple domains separate from each other.

As Scalix is not designed for hosting services, this is not possible with the current software. If you're looking to do this, you should consider running separate servers or waiting until the next major release when we will be providing support for running multiple instances on the same machine.

Cheers

Dave

Good to hear that functionality will soon be available.

Thanks for the quick response Dave!

florian wrote:SWilliams,

what you want to achieve is easily possible using a POP/IMAP based client with Scalix Server as the backend. If you want to use Outlook or our own SWA Web Client, situation becomes a little more complex.

I'd like to work with you to understand your full set of requirements; can you please contact us at support@scalix.com, ask them to forward me your contact details and I'll be in touch with you!

Thanks, Cheers,
Florian.

Hi Florian,

I'm a bit mystified... as when I have used either OE or Thunderbird (with identities), and realy through the smtpd (on port 587 with smtp-auth), the "From" address is always rewritten to the corporate account address (primary scalix address) regardless of what the client is set up as.

So.... the idea that "identities" can be achieved by using IMAP and seting those as the email in the client does not seem to be true? Or have I missed something in my testing? This multiple identity - for sending - is critical.

Thanks!
Chris

Hello,
I know this is an old worn topic, I will bravely ask.. What I'd like to to do is to add several new domain to may scalix installation. There will be 4 domains total. 1 existing domain, and 3 new ones.
Domain1 is what we use right now, but I'd like to convert everyone to default send out as domain2. and of course users will want to continue to get mail from domain1, 3, and 4. Searching through the forum, I'm under the impression that there are some sort of documentation on how to do this already. Can someone point out where I might find this documentation? Otherwise, what would be the proper procedure of achieving this seamlessly to the end user? eg: They come to work next morning, all they know is their new outgoing email domain is now domain2, and they'll keep receiving mail from all the other domains.

Thank you

Lynda

lleung wrote:Hello,
I know this is an old worn topic, I will bravely ask.. What I'd like to to do is to add several new domain to may scalix installation. There will be 4 domains total. 1 existing domain, and 3 new ones.
Domain1 is what we use right now, but I'd like to convert everyone to default send out as domain2. and of course users will want to continue to get mail from domain1, 3, and 4. Searching through the forum, I'm under the impression that there are some sort of documentation on how to do this already. Can someone point out where I might find this documentation? Otherwise, what would be the proper procedure of achieving this seamlessly to the end user? eg: They come to work next morning, all they know is their new outgoing email domain is now domain2, and they'll keep receiving mail from all the other domains.

Thank you

Lynda

http://www.scalix.com/community/viewtop ... ng+address

will get you going.

Cheers,

Sascha.

I think this is the most appropriate thread for my questions; apologies if it has been answered, but I found this thread while doing a search so hopefully I can get this cleared up.

I know there is no link between a mailnode and a domain name, but what is the difference between the domain name that you assign to a mailnode, and the domain name that you can add in the SAC under Administration (local domains)?

Currently, our server (exim) recieves email for three different domains. I would like to replace it with Scalix, I can do this by adding mailnodes and alternate addresses to an account; but the problem is sending from three different accounts. What are my options here? Three Scalix instances? Or have Scalix handle one domain, and leave the other three to exim?

I would really like to consolidate all this into one Scalix system if possible. Any setup that can provide this kind of functionality? I don't need all mail to be accessible from one location (ie, I am satisfied if people will have to login to three different SWA locations). I would like the Outlook integration to work on the primary domain, and then have people maybe add their alternate accounts under different Outlook profiles.

Do I need three different Scalix servers running? Mailnodes? Local domains?

Any ideas?