Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 14:26:04 +1000 (EST) From: Joel Sutton <jsutton@bbcon.com.au> To: Stephen McKay <syssgm@detir.qld.gov.au> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [ADV] Need anti-exchange ammunition Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9910251407310.2616-100000@stargate.home> In-Reply-To: <199910250357.NAA03173@nymph.detir.qld.gov.au>
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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 Lets not forget the anti-spaming facilities that come with sendmail by default on a FreeBSD install. Taking the other side of the argument for a moment. Is there an already existing NT setup? (ie fileserver with 100 user accounts). I haven't done much with Exchange, but I have with Groupwise (Novell's groupware product). One of the major advantages of using Groupwise in a netware environment is that it can access the authentication info in an existing NDS tree. Can we achieve something similar with FreeBSD (radius???)? Also, these is the administration of the system. Are the techo's in your organisation mainly UNIX people? If so, they would be more productive with FreeBSD boxes. If something goes wrong with an email system like Exchange (or Groupwise), the database can be difficult to clean up. At my previous job, people's email would simply vapourise when the Groupwise post office got screwed up. Sometimes we could get it back, but not often. Perhaps someone who has had experience with Exchange could comment on this? Using IMAP and Pegasus mail is one of the methods I recommend for people in this situation. It's cost effective and centralised. If someone can't download their email, there's a good chance you can fix it with vi in /var/mail. Well, there's a few bits and pieces. Hope they help. Cheers, Joel... --- Joel Sutton | Busy Bee Consulting Phone: 0409 426-563 | Melbourne, Australia Email: jsutton@bbcon.com.au | http://www.bbcon.com.au/ VicFUG Webmaster/Acting President | http://www.vicfug.au.freebsd.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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