Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

Email Server Frustration -- Looking for Advice

<< < (2/6) > >>

Stoic Joker:
How many users/mail boxes do you plan on supporting with this?

I maintain 3 production Exchange servers all of which use GFi MailEssentials. Per user licensing makes the licensing costs (not exactly cheap, but...) reasonable, and I can't argue with the results. multiple infinitely configurable filters give you extreemly granular control so that filters with higher success rates can be allowed to auto delete. While other filters which tend to be more iffy can be set to only tag or move to junkmail/alternate box for manual sorting (which is seldom needed).

I keep one box called Little Bunny Foo-foo that catches the iffy stuff, and users are told that if something they should have gotten hasn't arived...tell me and I'll "check" with "Bunny" to see if it's been "eaten". This happens approx 3 times a month, and is more often than not the senders fault for botching the address.

GFi also has excellent logging and a real-time dashboard so you can watch all of the mail (sender, reciepient, subject, timestamp, disposition, etc.) as it flows through the server.

I also host the mail for my own domain (MS POP/SMTP) on a virtualized (MS VPC Server) copy of Server 2k3. Other than power issues taking me offline at home from time to time both options have been quite reliable in the years I've been running them (6 for the exchange servers and 10 for the domain/home lab).

Now, granted the Exchange config scales much better but for maintaining small 5-10 mailbox servers the MS POP/SMTP option has proven stone ax (also speaks to its feature set) reliable.

Renegade:
This is where I want to cry... I just can't do it with Exchange.

First, I'd need DNS servers, which means 2 more machines -- no go.

Then, Active Directory - Nightmare from Hell.

Exchange just doesn't cut it as it's too big for me.

I'm running 1 server for this (well, I have another, but I want everything on 1), so...

I think I've decided to suck it up and go with hMailServer. But if anyone knows of a good Windows email server that doesn't charge by the inbox, I'd appreciate it.

I only need about 50 inboxes or so. Most are things like sales@, support@, postmaster@, abuse@, info@, etc. I just don't want to pay for that. Postmaster and abuse are mandatory (by RFC), so...

Another thing though, does anyone know of a good webmail program? I'm using Squirrelmail, but it's pretty basic. No RTE even. Sigh...

I hate email. :( ;(

Stoic Joker:
This is where I want to cry... I just can't do it with Exchange.

First, I'd need DNS servers, which means 2 more machines -- no go.-Renegade (November 22, 2010, 12:54 PM)
--- End quote ---
Why would you need two extra machines for DNS? - Come to think of it why would you need 2 DNS servers period?

Then, Active Directory - Nightmare from Hell.
--- End quote ---


If all AD has to do is backup Exchange, it's next to impossible to screw-up - Unless DNS is configured wrong. If you go with the 2k3 versions hardware requirements aren't bad either. With AD the DC will have DNS, throw Exchange on the same box (Lots of small shops do it - SBS...) and as long as you seperate Exchange (and etc) onto its own partition it's perfectly stable. Our Exchange server here (is pared with a DC) supports 25 mail boxes, and has a typical uptime of 6 months and longer depending on what type of security updates are needed/required/arrive. ...And that's on 4GB of RAM.

Exchange just doesn't cut it as it's too big for me.
--- End quote ---
To big how?

I hate email. :( ;(
--- End quote ---
Email isn't the problem, it's the users we need to shoot... ;)

Shades:
Hey, I am running an Exchange 2000 Server on a Pentium II 350MHz with 256MB RAM. Definitely not fast, but also nearly not as slow as you might think (several 100's of mostly text based mail messages per minute divided over 10 mailboxes).

Don't know if you still can get GFI or other products for it anymore, but if you only need the basics...
Besides we use a linux box to do some serious traffic shaping (carpet bombing style) and that leaves all quiet on the western front. That server is still running after 4 years of power failures and failing hard drives.

40hz:
A free 5 IP address version of GFI LanGuard is still available for download. IMHO, if you're running a Windows network, you should be using this utility - or at least something with comparable functions. Works with Standard, Enterprise, and SBS Windows Servers.  Supports versions 2000, 2k3, and 2k8.

Link for more info and download here.

Cool tool.  8) :Thmbsup:

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page