[nzlug] Biting the Bullet -- Authentication & Email

[Roland Hill]

On Fri, March 30, 2007 11:57 am, Robin Sheat wrote:

[snip authentication stuff I don't know about]

>> Also, is it a terrible idea to setup and use an IMAP server as a place
>> just to physically store emails?  That is, let 'Evolution' and 'Mac OS
>> Mail'
>> handle delivery via our ISPs SMTP servers and our existing POP accounts.
>>
> I'd probably run a local mail server on the IMAP server and use that for
> sending. Setting something up that just forwards from your LAN to your ISP
>  mail server is pretty trivial, and it means that if you change ISPs the
> users don't even have to notice. Perhaps use something like fetchmail to
> pull mail from the ISP to the IMAP server. IMAP locally is nice because it
> means that the mail can be synchronised between multiple computers easily.
> (Although,
> we've just moved to 'Google Apps for your domain' for work email and
> calendaring)

Whilst I'm not a business, I have this on my home LAN (only 3 users, so
hardly a 'production' environment) and it works well. Postfix as the MTA
using my ISP as a smarthost/relay host, getmail to pop mail from the ISP
and deliver to users on a cron schedule and Bincimap for the IMAP server.

The IMAP server is great for flexibility of using different mail clients,
and allows webmail (if a web server is set up of course) for remote access
if required. It's great if people use multiple machines, or need to swap
machines for whatever reason as well, yet retain mail access.

-- 
Regards,

Roland