Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 12:26:29 +0300 From: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> To: Enriko Groen <enriko.groen@netivity.nl> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Replacing Exchange Message-ID: <20010706122628.A8858@hades.hell.gr> In-Reply-To: <510EAC2065C0D311929200A0247252622F794C@NETIVITY-FS>; from enriko.groen@netivity.nl on Thu, Jul 05, 2001 at 02:49:28PM %2B0200 References: <510EAC2065C0D311929200A0247252622F794C@NETIVITY-FS>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
-----Original Message----- From: Enriko Groen <enriko.groen@netivity.nl> Subject: Replacing Exchange Date: Thu, Jul 05, 2001 at 02:49:28PM +0200 > 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. No, this is the right place to ask questions like this. You are thinking of using a FreeBSD system to replace Exchange. Therefore, you rang the correct door bell :) > 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). Well, these two (Exchange and Outlook) interoperate nicely. At least, they're supposed to; when bugs dont stop them from doing so. I don't know about the 'worst' MUA, but Outlook (Express or not) is terrible in some of it's limitations. Still, for a lot of people it is all they need, or at least that's what they believe. > However, we are quite used to some Outlook functions like calendar, > contacts, public folders and hotsync'ing with Palm/Psion. The shared calendar, contacts, and folders of Outlook are implemented on the client-side. What I mean by this is that, as long as you still use Outlook as your MUA, it makes absolutely no difference which MTA software you use. In a company I was working until February 2001, the main SMTP server was a Solaris box running Qmail. When two users, say A and B, wanted to share their calendars, they would use the normal 'Share calendar' menus of their Outlook clients. When A wants to share his calendar (or a folder, or her contacts) with B, then A selects 'share' and a MIME-encoded message is automatically composed from A's Outlook. When B's Outlook receives this special message, it opens it, and asks user B if he accepts the sharing thing. If B accepts, another message is composed from B's Outlook this time that is sent back to A, informing him that the sharing has successfully finished. From that moment, all updates that are made to the shared entity by any user that has write-access, is delivered to the owner of the entity (in this case A) by sending special MIME-encoded messages and letting user A (the owner) relay the messages that will update the shared instances of that entity to all the interested users. > Any suggestions? Links? Experiences? Anything is welcome... I am writing all this, in case you want to show it to management people, asking if this is going to work. The answer is 'yes, it does work'. The only features of Exchange/Outlook combination that do not seem to work properly with other SMTP servers (hell, Exchange in it's default installation doesn't even use SMTP to communicate with Outlook) are those that involve persistent objects that are stored in the Exchange server. For most of them I could find no good use, or they were not used anyway, for various reasons. For instance, you cannot save your Outlook password to the Qmail server, as many users tend to do in their Outlook clients. From a convenience point of view, this is a feature that was lost. From a security standpoint, storing passwords in one place is good (since they are not stored in the client machine, when the user selects 'Remember password' in their Outlook). However it is also stupid to store the password in the server and have Outlook automatically authenticate itself, when it fires up. Then anyone with access to the workstation can open Outlook, and read the mail of that user without being asked for a password. Another feature that does not work with some MTA other than Exchange is the shared `group folders' that Outlook can read from an Exchange server. This is very similar to USENET newsgroups in functionality, and I usually prefer to install a local News server instead of depending on Exchange to do that work for me. Anyway, this is getting too long a message. I hope it does help a bit. Don't worry. Outlook works fine with any MTA you want to use. Plus, a properly configured FreeBSD mail server will be more stable than any Exchange 5, Exchange 2000, or Exchange-anything server you install. Ciao, -giorgos To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20010706122628.A8858>