Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 11:18:15 +0100 From: Paul Richards <paul@originative.co.uk> To: Joel Sutton <jsutton@bbcon.com.au> Cc: Stephen McKay <syssgm@detir.qld.gov.au>, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [ADV] Need anti-exchange ammunition Message-ID: <38142E67.C73FA6B5@originative.co.uk> References: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9910251407310.2616-100000@stargate.home>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Joel Sutton wrote: > > Stephen, > > On Mon, 25 Oct 1999, Stephen McKay wrote: > > > Greetings fellow defenders of right and good. Well, I feel like I'm > > under siege, so I'm looking for fellow defenders. :-) > > Well, I'll give it a go. ;-) > > > A project here that we thought was just looking for a new mail system > > to replace CCMail (for the PC centric general users) has expanded > > beyond recognition and wants to take over everything. One of their > > expectations is that we will toss out our existing FreeBSD/sendmail > > mail hub and put in M$ Exchange. Eeek! > > Eeek indeed! I'm feeling ill already. > > > So, I'm looking for as much anti exchange ammunition as I can find. > > I'm interested, of course, in technical stuff, but even more > > interested in war stories of managers getting fired for breaking the > > mail system. And it can't hurt to be directed to sites that describe > > how to build an exchange replacement from open source tools, just to > > scare them with. > > Firstly, how about cost?? Exchange isn't cheap but if your organisation > already owns it... > > One of the things I try to push with FreeBSD is the availability of extra > low-cost bits and pieces: > > - imap access > - pop access > - telnet access to mail via pine/elm/whatever > - imp for web based email > - server based filtering with procmail > - majordomo Exchange does most if not all of the above so it's not the best argument. The biggest problem I've had with exchange is restoring failed systems. Exchange puts the SID into the mail repository (the SID is a security ID) and because of that you can't use a mail repository from one machine on another machine. The SID is generated uniqely when you install NT so if you install NT on to another box you get a different SID. The effect of this is that if your Exchange box fails then you can't restore your mail repository on another box, unless you have a backup of the NT security hive then your mail is lost. Even if you do have a copy of your security hive (and you better make sure you do backup it up regularly) the fact that the SID is in the mail repository means that you can't build a clean Exchange server and move the mail across, you have to restore you're old hive and effectively create a clone of the original box. This caused me no end of hassles when I first came across it and has been my main criticism of Exchange ever since. You can duplicate most of NT's functionality using sendmail (postfix, whatever), cyrus and ldap. Performance is also worth considering, Exchange eats resources much like everything else Microsoft. Paul. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?38142E67.C73FA6B5>