mail admin for hot-deskers

democrates

A friends organisation is having trouble due to mailbox quotas overflowing at his web host, resulting in higher bills. They use webmail so the 20 odd users can access their mail from any pc (they hotdesk).

I got to thinking an internal mail server with a 250GB drive might be the answer. It would send and fetch mail, and each user could log in to this server from any pc and access their mail.

Is there a relatively straightforward integrated solution available, or does it mean learning how to install and maintain sendmail/qmail, fetchmail and the like?

Ideally it would be open source/free software as they're a non-profit operating on a shoestring.

seamus

Afaik, fetchmail will do this for you.

I've also installed hMailServer for Windows which is pretty good at what you're looking for.

I would generally advise people that unless you have a significantly large company (and your own IT dept) then stick with managed mail services. Email has become a business critical application these days. A mail server which resides in the company itself leaves you wide open for hours if not days of unavailable or fragmented email access.
The proxy solution you propose does at least keep email deliverable if the internal server goes down, but if it was me, I would research other solutions before going with it. For example, will the host allow you to enforce quotas? Then get each user to set up alternate storage (PSTs for example in Outlook) and move old mail in there.
The problem with unlimited mail quotas is that some people will use them. If you enforce a rigid upper limit on a mailbox size, then you force people to manage their mailboxes.

democrates

seamus wrote:

Afaik, fetchmail will do this for you.

I've also installed hMailServer for Windows which is pretty good at what you're looking for.

I would generally advise people that unless you have a significantly large company (and your own IT dept) then stick with managed mail services. Email has become a business critical application these days. A mail server which resides in the company itself leaves you wide open for hours if not days of unavailable or fragmented email access.
The proxy solution you propose does at least keep email deliverable if the internal server goes down, but if it was me, I would research other solutions before going with it. For example, will the host allow you to enforce quotas? Then get each user to set up alternate storage (PSTs for example in Outlook) and move old mail in there.
The problem with unlimited mail quotas is that some people will use them. If you enforce a rigid upper limit on a mailbox size, then you force people to manage their mailboxes.

Good point, more storage will only allow a bigger problem to build up, they've responded to all requests to keep within their quotas with demands for more space.
They might even be able to store the pst archives on the server...
From what I've read on support fora for the mta's etc. a mail proxy is not to be taken on lightly, they're better off exhausting other options before attemtping that.
Meanwhile I'll be watching https://www.google.com/hosted/Home with interest. Gmail for your own domain indeed.
Thanks for the info.

Red Alert

keep the current mail server and stick a Linux box at your premises to download the mail from the accounts.

it will then put it in each user's inbox using a program called fetchmail.

i71jskz5xu42pb

democrates wrote:

A friends organisation is having trouble due to mailbox quotas overflowing at his web host, resulting in higher bills. They use webmail so the 20 odd users can access their mail from any pc (they hotdesk).

Set up their mail so that it forwards to gmail accounts i.e. joe.schmoe@comp.com forwards to joe.schmoe.comp@gmail.com and access their email from there. There's no practical space limits on the gmail account and you can now set the "From" address so that it comes from joe.schmoe@comp.com (i.e. no mention of GMail, not "on behalf of" the GMail user). You can do this now - no need to wait for the hosted solution.

democrates wrote:

Is there a relatively straightforward integrated solution available, or does it mean learning how to install and maintain sendmail/qmail, fetchmail and the like?

I would say no. Running a mail server is not trivial i.e. you need to know what you are doing. Mess it up and you end up as a spam relay and being blacklisted as a sender.
In addition to the inbound/outbound internal mail server you presumably still need to put a web front end on it so the employees could hot-desk, right?

democrates

PaschalNee wrote:

Set up their mail so that it forwards to gmail accounts i.e. joe.schmoe@comp.com forwards to joe.schmoe.comp@gmail.com and access their email from there. There's no practical space limits on the gmail account and you can now set the "From" address so that it comes from joe.schmoe@comp.com (i.e. no mention of GMail, not "on behalf of" the GMail user). You can do this now - no need to wait for the hosted solution.


I would say no. Running a mail server is not trivial i.e. you need to know what you are doing. Mess it up and you end up as a spam relay and being blacklisted as a sender.
In addition to the inbound/outbound internal mail server you presumably still need to put a web front end on it so the employees could hot-desk, right?

Either they'd need a web front end, or sepearate outlook accounts on every pc they use, with their personal folders stored on the local server. Just to make it more awkward they've an ms internal network.

I'll look into that gmail option, maybe some mail could be put through that and sensitive stuff kept on the existing host...
Thanks for the pointers folks.

ntlbell

Is this a charitable organization?

If so I wouldn't mind donating time to get this up and running for you.