using Scalix pop3 with Sendmail

[Rafel Coyle]

We are trying to use pop3 services with the Community Edition of Scalix. Can you tell me what needs to be done to make this work. Scalix pop3 server takes over the normal pop3 (dovecot), but there is very little detail on this process? Also, does Scalix recnognize data that has been process via the normal Sendmail Alias file?

[ScalixSupport]

Hi Rafel,

Take a look in the Scalix Administration Guide. Chapter 15 provides lots of details about both the POP and IMAP servers.

Regarding the /etc/aliases file, what exactly are you trying to do? Scalix receives mail via it's own SMTP Relay, but if you want the message processed via sendmail, you'll need to SMTPFILTER=TRUE to your smtpd.cfg file (see the Admin Guide for details).

Thanks,
Rachel

[Rafel Coyle]

Are you able to send and receive mail via pop and smtp using local clients like Thunderbird or Mozilla?

[ScalixSupport]

Yes, of course. We support standard POP3 and SMTP.

Thanks,
Rachel

[Rafel Coyle]

Sorry it took a while for me to get back on this. Could you please explain to me how I can setup up Scalix where some can use the Web Interface and other users can continue to use POP3 and SMTP with a Thunderbird Client. It seems like Scalix takes over POP3 and SMTP and the local Thunderbird/Mozilla clients no longer function as they used to.

Your resonse will be appreciated.

[ScalixSupport]

Rafel,

Scalix has it's own POP3 and SMTP server. Your Thunderbird users can connect to those servers while your webmail users can use SWA to get their mail.

Thanks,
Rachel

[florian]

If you want to coninue using your old POP/IMAP servers, you would need to configure them (and their clients) to use alternate port numbers. Scalix needs to own port 110 (POP) and port 143 (IMAP).

However - why would you want to do this? Scalix includes a fully-integrated POP and IMAP server and as these can be used by standard users, you can put all your POP/IMAP users onto Scalix for free and just don't need your old POP server anymore. This saves you the hassle to run multiple servers providing the same services.

Cheers,
Florian.

[Rafel Coyle]

I am aware that Scalix can do this, but I am looking for instructions on how to set Scalix for use in this mixed environment. I cannot find instructions anywhere on how to set this mixed use environment up.

[Rafel Coyle]

the pop/smtp users are on the same server as Scalix.

[florian]

Hi Rafel,

there is not really anything to be done on the Scalix side. Scalix is a comprehensive solution, therefore must be setup as the main mailserver on a system, owning standard ports 25, 110, 143 (SMTP, POP, IMAP). Scalix also uses standard LDAP port 389, but this can be configured.

You will need to configure your other standard Linux components to use different port numbers or a different IP address. The configuration of this will be specific to those components.

Maybe we can provide some more pointers if you describe your usecase in more detail. I'm still not 100% clear what exactly you're trying to archieve with this setup. running 2 mailservers "just in case" seems unneccessary complexity to me.

Hope this helps,
Thanks,
Florian.

[Rafel Coyle]

I have 1 mail server running RHEL4, w 2GB ram and lots of HD space. We use sendmail and depend on the aliases file quite heavily. There seems to be at least two different ways to use Scalix. 1 is Scalix Web Acces and the other is a connector to MS Outlook. Out goal is to eliminate MS Outlook so we don't want to connect the two together in some seamless way. I want some users mostly sales, etc to have access to Scalix Web, and some users to continue to gain access via pop/smtp using clients like Thunderbird and MS Outlook. This will give me adequate time to become more familiar with the maintenance and operation of Scalix.

[florian]

sure - makes all good sense.

However, one of the key benefits of Scalix is Clients of Choice, in full and in parallel. So by putting the mailboxes on the Scalix server, every single user can decide if he wants to use Outlook, Scalix Web Access, POP or IMAP to access his mailbox. Furthermore, he can even switch on the fly yet still see the same data. I continously switch between all three types of clients (excluding POP...) with my scalix.com mailbox and I'm happy with this.

The aliases can be setup in Scalix as well, either as additional email addresses (SMTP aliases) or as distribution lists (in case of multiple recipients).

You will certainly gain overall functionality by doing so.

How many users in total are you running on your system?

Thx,
Florian.

[Rafel Coyle]

This is well and good, but it is difficult to see how to set this up from the docs provided.

We have about 60 users. We can eventually go the route that you are suggesting, but this will be a migration path for me. I believe that Scalix will work for me, but the comprehensive help for my scenarios is not there. My goal is to move my client up the chain and get them to purchase a license for your product. I haven't been able to prove Scalix's value at this point and the support provided is not helping me.

[florian]

Rafel,

sorry - i still don't really get your point here.....

Again, from our perspective Scalix installation needs to be done on a "email-dedicated" machine, so our installer and server is not prepared to set itself up in coexistence mode, i.e. preserving other email services running on the same machine; afaik, this has never been requested and is certainly not a typical scenario. In addition, I don't believe any other "fully integrated email server product" supports such a mode of operation.

So - from our perspective, the setup you're describing would be "unsupported".

However, it is technically possible - by design, though, setting up a coexistence scenario becomes an excercise "on the other side".

- you would have to select a different (virtual) IP address and set this up on your server
OR
- you would have to select a set of different port numbers for POP, IMAP and SMTP services

- you would then need to configure your existing SMTP server (Postfix? Sendmail? Exim?) to listen on a non-25 port number or on the alternate IP address [actually, for SMTP you could use a single sendmail as a listener for both scalix and your local email accounts, but that's usually a more complex setup]
- you would then need to configure your existing IMAP server (Cyrus? Courier) to listen on the alternate port number and/or IP address. same for POP.
- you would then need to change the configuration on all your clients to use the new IP address/port numbers

I don't feel capable of providing you with any more detailed support on the procedure; the settings described are "product-specific" settings of the mentioned components, also dependent on the versions you're using and your OS distro - believe this is really outside the scope of Scalix.

Also, the whole setup seems awfully complex to me; if you had a larger number of users and would require an extensive coexistence scenario, we would probably suggest that you setup a secondary machine and populate parts of your user community to either box, depending on whether they would be using Scalix or not. This would also make migration easier as you could then use a tool like "imapcopy" or "imapsync" to copy over the data server 2 server. if you look for either of the names throughout this forum, you will probably find many pointers to that.

could you afford to setup a separate temporary machine for the purpose? This would really make life very easy.

If you need to do it in place, a cutover migration would possibly involve either having the user help (by downloading the data to the clients and uploading it again once the new mail server is in place) or setting up a temporary imap access on a different port number and again running imapcopy/imapsync to migrate the data. Understand that this is all-not trivial, however I can assure you that we've done similar migrations in installations of several thousand users successfully. obviously, you can also ask us for help, but that would involve engaging with our professional services team because running all this through the full coexistence and migration excercise is probably a bit beyond of what we can do here through this public forum.

Any more support we can provide you with at this point?

Thx,
Florian.