[Gllug] Exchange -> IMAP

[Mike Brodbelt]

On Mon, 2003-08-18 at 22:49, John Edwards wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 18, 2003 at 05:07:53PM +0100, Paul Lee wrote:
> <snip>
> 
> > I switched a small business over from NT/Exchange to Linux/Postfix/Cyrus 
> > Imap with Horde and it worked very well.
> 
> Some people find that a web interface is much slower and doesn't have 
> the required features of a full client program. Horde has the pretty 
> bells and whistles but the code base was rather hairy and changable 
> when I last looked at it (about a year ago). Squirelmail looks cleaner 
> and seems faster (IMHO).

I've tried both, and much prefer Squirrelmail. Both are PHP apps, but
Squirrelmail provides it's own IMAP implementation, while IMP requires
Horde, which requires PHP to have been compiled against the UW c-client
libs. It's much more of a PITA to get working, and exposes you to any
security holes in c-client, as well as PHP.

> Some advantages of a Unix system can be spam filtering (SpamAssassin), 
> greater control over the filtering of email (eg keep a copy of all 
> outgoing email), and some much bettering mailing list managers.

I run SpamAssassin on a sitewide basis - I just tag all mail, and then
it's up to the users to filter or not, as they choose. Many don't
bother, but the users who answer email addresses on our website have
been very grateful to be able to stop the flood of porn spams...

> Copying between servers is slow, but usually OK with you have an IMAP 
> clients that can copying a folder hierarchy (Outlook Express can't).

Can you name any? I need to go from Cyrus to something else for a couple
of users who used to rent office space from us, but have departed. They
want their mail in Outlook, but I'd be happy with any client that can
copy the folder hierarchy - then they can get their own people to put it
into Outlook if they want.

> > Only thing you might want to watch is the close integration between 
> > Outlook and Exchange, as people think the calender and scheduling stuff 
> > under Windows is great.

Mozilla Sunbird is looking promising. In combination with a WebDAV
server, you can create a centralised calendaring setup with a little
effort. I'm not using it in anger yet, but as all my users are using
Netscape 7 for web/mail, I'm looking at going in that direction. As soon
as Mozilla gets a spell checker, I could conceivably upgrade - though
I'm not really in any rush.

> The email/contacts/calendar integration is the main reason to use 
> Exchange, and the main reason why Unix replacements are had to find.
> 
> Contacts can be done using LDAP, though some time needs to be spent 
> setting up OpenLDAP before it's ready for ues with most clients.

It's getting better - we're a lot closer to being able to duplicate full
Exchange functionality than a while ago, and we'll get there without the
hideous cost and security issues.

> > You don't have to use Cyrus, as there are other IMAP servers, and Cyrus 
> > admin is a bit command line and arcane for some, though webmin modules 
> > do exist.
> 
> Cyrus is very robust, though the automation tools usually require 
> the writing of a few scripts in Tcl (v1) or Perl (v2). The shared 
> folders systems is much better done than Courier and UW-IMAP.

Cyrus provides a lot of things that I consider necessary for a serious
mail store, which are lacking in the other implementations. None of the
others provide a single instance store, for example.

> Also the O'Reilly IMAP book is worth looking at, and covers Cyrus 
> and UW-IMAP servers as well as the protocol and some clients program. 
> There are example scripts using Tcl and Perl for admin and conversion.

The O'Reilly book is so out of date with regard to Cyrus that it's
dangerous... The Cyrus people are deeply unimpressed with anyone running
v1 these days, and there have been harsh words on the cyrus list aimed
in Debian's direction because Woody still carries v1.

Mike.


-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at linux.co.uk
http://list.ftech.net/mailman/listinfo/gllug