Mail questions.

J

James

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Let me put you in perspective. A company currently with 13 employee's but will expand to a max of 50, looking for a cheaper alternative to paying for single email address's from the ISP. Using exchange will i need a static IP to host my own mail serverand how hard is this to configure. 2nd would it be more worth while to just set up 1 email account, use alias's and set exchange with rules for delivery so each client downloads there mail from the exchange server??? Thanks in advance

hardware involved.
1 ADSL line,
1 intel box running 2003 small business server standard

There is no peace without war!!!
 
I had the self-same issue with a client of mine about 5 years ago. Eventually I realised that all they really needed was a mail routing facility, and opted for a simpler solution, using a product called Internet Anywhere - far easier than Exchange. They used a single mail account with MWeb, who setup 30 aliases for that account (if I remember correctly, it came to about R15 per alias - I may be mistaken). The account was a dial-up account, and Internet Anywhere was configured to dial-in 3 times a day, to collect all the mail from that account on MWeb's POP3 server and distribute it locally on the LAN, and to deliver all mail to MWeb's SMTP server collated since the last dial-in. All local clients delivered their mail to the Internet Anywhere server, and dial-out was only enforced in the event of priority mail, else the dial-out schedule was adhered to. Bottom line - no need for a static IP, no funny bizniz with configuring Exchange (was a real crappy product at the time), a rock-solid solution on a problematic M$ platform (Windows NT) and at minimal cost.

I subsequently gave up the account due to issues of support cost (was a NGO that didn't have any money), but last I heard they'd received Linux expertise from someone for free, and the mail server is now probably Postfix/sendmail (the right way to go, IMHO)...
 
Just went a-googling for Internet Anywhere - if you're interested, get it at http://www.tnsoft.com/
 
you can run all of this using ADSL, with a Dynamic IP configuration so that the domain is always reachable and as mail server, well use linux and give the staff a easy to use freeware email client that runs of pop3.

no need to use one email box with all this delivering rules etc,

G

You Have The Obligation to Inform One Honestly of the risk, And As a Person
You Are Committed to Educate Yourself to the Total Risk In Any Activity!
Once Informed & Totally Aware of the Risk,
Every Fool Has the Right to Kill or Injure Themselves as They See Fit!
 
cheers, thanks for all the advise.

There is no peace without war!!!
 
hehe cannonball linux is the way to go it will work as a PDC/mail/web server has anti virus/spam all on a linux box ... oh and for kicks ive just implemented a PBX with voice mail/IVR/auto attendant that can do LCR :) all this over a bandwidthmanaged VPN on ADSL ...
 
Hey CANNON - what you using for the mail server? At some stage I'd like your distro iso/tarball - not now, no time to hack...
 
im useing good old fassioned sendmail but with SASL/SSL/LDAP support so all config is web bassed mail is scanned with spamassasin/clam via mailscanner ...

it works fantastic ...
 
Thanx - just what I'd have expected... Will touch base with you much later about distro hack/crash test - only next year... [;)][:)]
 
Just a word of advise I suggest you get your Dynamic DNS provider to set you with a Mail backup facility. This way if you lose power or your dynamic ip does not update correctly you won't lose mail. Zoneedit provide this

Daredevil
http://www.axonwireless.co.za
 
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