Scalix and Postfix

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vbg

Scalix and Postfix

Postby vbg » Fri Dec 29, 2006 5:54 am

Hi all

Any help would be deeply appreciated.

My scenario -

I have to install Scalix Enterprise Edition 11 on 5 different geographically located servers.

All servers directly need to send outgoing mail.
Incoming mail is received through the MX server and routed to the appropriate server.
In case primary MX is down, secondary MX (at a remote site) takes over.

This is a migration from Postfix/Amavisd-new/ClamAV/MySQL virtual domains setup. The previous setup has been quite secure, robust and relatively trouble free.
Since we need advanced groupware and MAPI connectivity, we are migrating to Scalix.

I NEED to maintain Postfix as the MTA for two major reasons -

We have sufficient experience with Postfix and can monitor/audit a lot of features. Specifically need -
always_bcc (can be done by Scalix - I know)
sender_bcc_maps (how to achieve with Scalix)
recipient_bcc_maps (How to achieve with Scalix)
SpamAssassin with Amavisd

Moreover - we are not very comfortable with Sendmail configuration. We have customised tools like awstats for our sites and we understand Postfix fairly well.

We have successfully installed Scalix over Postfix as mentioned at a few places in the forum.
Currently Postfix receives all mail from outside and delivers to Scalix running at port 10027.
We need to maintain the Postfix virtual table to ensure that mail address to user@mydomain.com reaches user@location.mydomain.com
Scalix has beem configured with both domains - location.mydomain.com and mydomain.com

We are newbies to Scalix but can run Postfix.

I would presume a better way would be run Scalix on port 25 and let Postfix run only on the localhost interface to forward mails that need to be sent outside Scalix. Pls correct me if I am wrong. I would love to do this. In this scenario, Clam can be integrated to check viruses, but what about SpamAssassin?

Since I am NOT going to use sendmail, the amavisd milter is out of the question. If I run SpamAssassin with Postfix on localhost, it does not help at all, as Scalix mailboxes would already have received spam by then.

Pls do correct me if I have not clearly understood Scalix mode of operation or if I am wrong.

Looking forward to an early reply to this post,


rgds


vbg

florian
Scalix
Scalix
Posts: 3852
Joined: Fri Dec 24, 2004 8:16 am
Location: Frankfurt, Germany
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Postby florian » Fri Dec 29, 2006 6:48 am

so good news is that in scalix 11 we have made a lot of this much easier by modifying how Scalix interacts with the Linux MTA (in particular, address lookups are now processed through LDAP and the connection between MTA and scalix is via local SMTP, not commandline and pipe).

Scalix needs to be a SMTP listener so that SWA and other SMTP-based clients can submit their messages and authenticate with Scalix; However, this does not need to be on port 25 at all. Actually, SMTP releay in scalix 11 allows to be configured to support "submisson" type service only. therefore, you could be doing all your MTA work in Postfix. that could include spam processing. if you use SMTP relay as your imcoming connection, you can still process Spam using the SMTPFILTER switch, as described in various posts.

On your address mapping side, i'm still not 100% clear what you want to archieve and what exact role postfix plays there. so.... if you could give us some more details, maybe we can work something out.

As this is a EE installation, it might also make sense to discuss the setup with us directly. Assume you have somebody in sales or services that you work with?

Cheers,
Florian.
Florian von Kurnatowski, Die Harder!

vbg

Postby vbg » Fri Dec 29, 2006 7:17 am

Hi Florian

Thanx for the quick response. Yes I am in touch with sales and support people, but time zone differences, holiday season and a a much larger community response are reasons tor me to discuss this in the forums.

As I understand, if I use the SMTPFILTER switch in smtpd.cfg, it will force the mail thru to Postfix (which is listening on localhost:25 --> amavisd@localhost:10024[SpamAssassin & ClamAV]-->back to smtp@localhost:10025) -->back to Scalix. I hope this should be OK.

If I run Postfix as the MTA (as I am currently doing) and use rimap as SASL mechanism, my biggest issue is - will adding different routes to various other servers, help?

Or I will be running 5 different sites with Scalix rather than one Enterprise site with 5 different servers?

I need to administer all users and functionality from one server and ideally need directory replication.

If the above on SMTPFILTER switch is true, hopefully my work is done.

Lastly, why is it that Scalix only looks for DNS for name resolution - I cannot work by specifying names in /etc/hosts (and my nsswitch.conf is OK - hosts files dns). Is there any way by which I can avoid having to use DNS - just for academic and test pruposes though!

rgds

vbg

florian
Scalix
Scalix
Posts: 3852
Joined: Fri Dec 24, 2004 8:16 am
Location: Frankfurt, Germany
Contact:

Postby florian » Fri Dec 29, 2006 7:25 am

where are you located? assume in EMEA based on timezone? could you contact me by email - i guess that's more appropriate in this case.

Florian.
Florian von Kurnatowski, Die Harder!

vbg

Postby vbg » Fri Dec 29, 2006 7:34 am

thanx florian

hv u recd my mail?


rgds


vbg

vbg

Postby vbg » Fri Dec 29, 2006 7:35 am

I am from India

rgds


vbg


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