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Date:      Fri, 8 Jan 1999 18:41:18 -0600 (CST)
From:      Chris Dillon <cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us>
To:        Drew Mouton <drew@etool.com>
Cc:        spork <spork@super-g.com>, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: post.office
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.05.9901081809560.3575-100000@duey.wolves.k12.mo.us>
In-Reply-To: <B0000054370@redwood.etool.com>

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On Fri, 8 Jan 1999, Drew Mouton wrote:

> Definitely go to www.stalker.com and check out CommuniGatePro. They were 
> a little bit late entering the market, but it's an incredible package - 
> and they're incredibly aggressive as far as adding new features and 
> quashing any bugs/anomalies. Already it has more stable features than 
> virtually anything else available.
> 
> It runs on half a dozen platforms, is very, very tightly based on 
> published RFCs, and in our initial testing seems to be as robust as 
> anything we've seen.
> 
> The only reason we haven't officially licensed it yet is the price: it's 
> kind of expensive for our needs, but if you aren't put off by Post.Office 
> pricing, this isn't so bad.
> 
> Drew
> 
> 
> it appears that around 1/8/99 10:57 AM, spork said:
> 
> >Anyone have any recommendations on a similar package?  I was considering
> >this even if I had to change platforms...  They claim on the website that
> >it allows for all kinds of features we're looking for:  integrated
> >webmail, 'family' accounts, and the ability for subscribers (both normal
> >and domain hosting customers) to manage their own accounts/aliases.
> >Building all this from scratch could be rather, erm, time consuming...
> >
> >Any suggestions?
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> >Charles

All I can say is "Wow".  I downloaded the fully functional Communigate
Pro, installed it (its a FreeBSD package), and ran the startup script
it stuck in /usr/local/etc/rc.d.  After that, I pointed a browser at
its admin port, logged in as the postmaster, and started playing
around.  Very very easy to set up, with plenty of online help.  
Munging through /var/CommuniGate, I see that everything is very neatly
laid out, and user accounts are simply directories in the form of
<username>.macnt with a couple of simple text files defining account
information and settings.  I even copied my mailbox from /var/mail to
INBOX.mbox and it worked perfectly.  You could easily convert a large
existing mail system to this with just some simple PERL or shell
scripts, or even create some accounts by hand.  Doing these things
behind the server's back means you have to stop/restart it though,
since it doesn't seem to notice right away.  Even the Web interface is
fully customizable via HTML templates.

It also has a pretty good set of anti-spam features, including
blacklists (including RBL), client access lists, and even allows users
who have become authenticated by the POP3 or IMAP4 modules to relay
through it for whatever amount of time you specify when you otherwise
have relaying turned off.

Regular CommuniGate (which only runs on the Mac, unfortunately), has
some modules for things like UUCP, Fax, Pager, Print, File, and Voice
gateways (well, the PRO version has UUCP built in, it looks like).
Maybe they will be adding some or all these to the Pro version later
on.

All in all, pretty impressive.  If they give discounts to schools, I
might actually use it.  :-)


-- Chris Dillon - cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us - cdillon@inter-linc.net
/* FreeBSD: The fastest and most stable server OS on the planet.
   For Intel x86 and compatibles (SPARC and Alpha under development)
   ( http://www.freebsd.org )                                       */



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