I have been tasked with providing an email solution for my company. Most of the folks in the company are not technical, marketing type folks. Most, if not all want to use Outlook as an email client. A hand full will need access to email on the road.

Looking for suggestions, keeping in mind that email will need to be seamless to these users. At this point I'm leaning towards Postfix with Courier.

Thanks
Mclewson

Exchange server?

Exchange server is too expensive. I'm going to have to house the server in a hosted facility.

I see nothing wrong with postfix + courier-imap. However, I bet you sooner or later those marketing folks are going to want to share calendars, schedules, contacts, and etc in which later you probably will need to install LDAP and configure that too.

IMO, I think exchange is expensive but it might resolve a lot of your headaches down the road (unless you are a whiz at configuring LDAP which I'm not hehe)

-twantrd

SME Server 6.0, a full feature mail server that has a free version. Comes as a bootable iso that install to the hard drive. Has a easy to follow setup and a web-based configuration. Should take around 40-60 minutes to setup, and there is also a script that will install anti-virus, anti-spam and secure email (ssl POP3, IMAP and SMPT). Can post the links to the iso and the script if your interested>

I'd go the Postfix+Courier-imap+Squirrelmail+SpamAssassin+clamav route personally. You could also have courier-pop as an option should they need/desire it.

Cool

I like Dovecot as an IMAP server, since IMO, it's easier to get set up than Courier. The downside is that it's less mature, but I'm using it on a smallish set-up (~20 users or so) and it works quite well.

I have done quite a bit of research on this for when I redo my server, I plan on using that setup ^ for about 2 users

yes i would sujest imap with spamassassin and clamav as well. what you chose to run as the accuall server is up to you, but i use qmail on a whitebox system.

i even have webmail access setup with shttp so the clients can access their e-mail even if they do not have their system/laptops with them.

side note: i had to creat a cron job to reset imapd every 2hrs as it would randomly lock out a client. random client and random lockout. i tried for 6 months to find a pattern and could not so i just have cron run a svc -t on my imapd every 2hrs. since then i have only 1 time had to go in and manually give it a kick.

so heads up there might be some issue with whitebox, q-mail and imap... there is also the possiblity that due to running apache2.x and php (latests) vs there is a conflict there as the php devs are saying not to upgrade post 1.3 apache if you are running php. read that someplace (slashdot IIRC) but for the small companies i manage this is perfect.

you can use any mail client you want (yes even outlook, but do try to put them on thunderbird if you can for windows users) they have access to their e-mail if they have access to the web. both via web-mail and via their business computer. they no longer have to worry about as many viruses getting into their systems currupting their data.

plenty of reasons to NOT go with Exchange, but if you need something at that level there are linux equivelent programs out there that cost about as much as Exchange.

unless you must have all of the shared data, and you might with the sales personal, setting up a basic e-mail server was not to horrid even for a linux newbie like myslef.

if you need all of the extra features of Exchange, then you will need to be a master as mentioned above at ldap, and many other tools, but there is nothing that exchange does that can not be done in linux it is just not as easy to configure.

SME Server has webmail with ssl as well, plus FTP and a web server, can be used as a standalone or gateway server.The IMAP has no problems, i've been running it for over 6 weeks now and it runs flawless, the anti-virus scans incoming and outgoing mail in realtime, both normal and encrypted mail.

The anti-virus and anti-spam update automatically so there is no need to worry about doing it maually. I know this way will take the fun out of learning how to setup a mail server, but it's gets the job done with a minimal fuss, and how many users you need to cater for will depend on the speed of the machine.