Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2001 02:02:48 -0400 (EDT) From: Jim Durham <durham@w2xo.pgh.pa.us> To: Enriko Groen <enriko.groen@netivity.nl> Cc: "'freebsd-questions@freebsd.org'" <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Replacing Exchange Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.33.0107070139010.526-100000@jimslaptop.jcdurham.com> In-Reply-To: <510EAC2065C0D311929200A0247252622F794C@NETIVITY-FS>
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On Thu, 5 Jul 2001, Enriko Groen wrote: > Hi, > > Although I realise that this is not really a FreeBSD specific question, I > think this is the best place for me to drop it. > > I'm just wondering if any one here has experience with replacing a Microsoft > Exchange server with a FreeBSD based system. > > My company (at this moment about 15 people) has started off using MS > products (MS Office, Exchange, IIS). I'm slowly (to my feeling) introducing > FreeBSD based machines/servers. > > The one that bugs me most is the Outlook + Exchange duo. Outlook is a beast > and possibly the worst MUA around (preaching to the converted here). > However, we are quite used to some Outlook functions like calendar, > contacts, public folders and hotsync'ing with Palm/Psion. > > I think we will stick with Windows as a desktop platform but we are willing > to take a look at for instance StarOffice. > > Any suggestions? Links? Experiences? Anything is welcome... > > -- Over the last year I have successfully converted our company over to FreeBSD/Samba in place of NT and Novell. I have been involved in the last couple months in replacing some of the "Exchange Server" functionality. I started at our company last summer, and the NT server was dieing every few months with one problem or another. My first week there, it managed to fill up it's disks, and crash. Then, during an attempted reboot, it sent *something* to the APC UPS and shut itself off in the middle of a reboot, trashing the disks beyond repair. The old sysadmin (who was overlapping with me) tryed to get it back up with many long calls to M$ tech support. During the 2 week period that he was on the phone with M$, trying to get the thing back up, I needed a mail server, so, I quickly went around the building and moved all the MUAs over to the FreeBSD server (I had set it up as the MX backup, (luckily) and life went on. I turned on IMAP and POP3 and Samba and voila! However, there was some whining. The big whine that everyone made was the address book. LDAP was our answer. Although Microsoft *almost* made their version of the LDAP client in Outlook and Express so non-standard as to be unusable, it was close enough. Outlook, Outlook Express, Netscape Messenger,Eudora and Entourage all support LDAP. I used openldap (from the ports) and set it up as a company address book and a contact list. I also have an Apache/PHP web page that allows one to update both lists. This works really well on Netscape 4.7 and sorta OK on Outlook 2000. Outlook 97 was a problem, but there is a free LDAP/Outlook Addressbook client out there called Messageware (check Google for the URL). It works *very* well with Outlook 97. Much better than the LDAP support in Outlook 2000. Another big win with LDAP was that Entourage on the Macs (we have a half floor of Macs in our building) also supports LDAP addressbooks and works very well. Like someone else said, everyone usually has their own personal contact list, so this isn't a big deal. One other thing that was missed was the "Out of Office" functionality, whereby a message is sent in reply to emails to someone on vacation or out of town for a while. Of course, unix has had a mechanism for doing this for a long time, the "vacation" program. However, expecting one of our "point-and-click" users to telnet (or better, SSH in) to the server and actually make a .forward file and a .vacation.msg in their home directory would get you nothing but blank stares. So, the answer here is a web page with a php script to create a .forward file and a .vacation.msg file for them. Then, it has a button to turn it off when they come back. So, it can be done. Actually, the Mac people are thrilled. They couldn't do the Exchange addressbook, so they have something they didn't have before. Anyway, that's my story... hope it is helpful to you. -Jim Durham To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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