Reviewing the BenHur 2-20, Part 2
by Volker Weber
[continued from part 1]
This is the scenario I am running BenHur² in and it is pretty standard. My mail gets delivered to a number of POP3 mailboxes at my ISP and various other mail providers. BenHur² uses fetchmail to pick up mail from these mailboxes and delivers them to the internal Cyrus IMAP server where I pick it up with my mail clients (Apple Mail and Mozilla Thunderbird). The mail remains on the server and is organized in folders. Outgoing mail goes to the BenHur² which delivers it to a relay server at my ISP. There are a lot of options here. Currently I am delivering directly from the client to the relay.
In this scenario I do not need my Domino server any more for mail delivery. Previously I needed two separate packages to retrieve mail (IGetMail) from the ISP and deliver it to the ISP relay (SMTPAuth). Recently I was having difficulties with SMTPAuth delivering to the ISP. They are being currently discussed with the author and are still unresolved. BenHur² could actually help in this scenario as well:
In this screnario BenHur² is picking up the mail via POP3 and delivering it to Domino via SMTP. Outgoing mail is sent from Domino to BenHur² which then sends them out via authenticated SMTP (which Domino does not support) to the ISP. As you can see there was no need to take down the Domino server. BenHur² would have simplified my setup tremendously by doing away with IGetMail and SMTPAuth. In my case the first scenario was even simpler since I do not have to support Notes clients.
[continued in part 3]
Comments
May I ask you what SMTPD you have on the Benhur?
May I ask what program you are using to draw your diagrams? I need something like that. :-)
How is the software managed on the BenHur? Can you update and install the relevant patches which might be released? From what I read from your earlier post it's running a modified Linux. Has e.g. the Cyrus IMAP server been integrated deeply into the system or can you patch it?
Guys, give me some time. This series will be continued. Stevan, your question is answered in part 1. Ragnar, yes, the system can be updated.
Scott, you should be able to draw this in about any program. :-) I was using this one.
Thanks Volker for the info. Can you tell us why you have trouble with Postfix and SMTP AUTH? Postfix normaly works perfectly with SMTP AUTH.
I have exactly both of your setups in production over here. The biggest problem with fetching mail from the ISP is, that you are forced to use filtering in order to prevent spam. I personaly find that very nasty.
I have a /29 network block I own. One week ago, I switched the incoming server to not be anymore on the ISP and now I have everything directly delivered to Postfix. Belive it or not, but the reason for that switch was the 11.03.2005. On that day I got 4'875 mails delivered to just the two domains which I had hosted on my ISP mail server and only 33 of them where not spam. It was just to much! After changing the DNS entry to point directly to my own Postfix server, I only had 7 mails delivered on monday 14.03.2005. Everything else was not even queued. Now I can look at my inbox in Notes and don't have to look over server 1'000 mails of spam. I have as well a anti spam filter which is tagging the spam mails, but still.... it was a mess! In no way I will ever let again a careless ISP host my mail infrastructure. Enough is enough.
However... I will probably switch away from Domino as my mail server. Domino is a great platform but the client only works on Windows and on Mac and this is a "no go" for me. I have much bigger control of the messaging infrastructure if I don't use Domino. I will still leave the Domino server for development work I need to do for customers, but for me there is no real need anymore to run Domino.
If you need help with the Postfix / Cyrus setup, then drop me a mail at any time you like. I can probably help you with most of the questions. I am now currently hosting about 68 domains over here with Postfix, Cyrus IMAPD/POP, Courier IMAPD/POP, Anti Spam, Anti Virus, Email2Fax gateway, Fax-Server, etc...
Thanks, Stevan.
To clarify on the SMTP Auth story: I have zero issues with Postfix. It was Domino that was unable to send mail via authenticated SMTP. It can only receive authenticated SMTP traffic. To work around this issue, I had a Windows service running as a proxy between Domino and the ISP.
And as a side note: Cyrus seems to be head and shoulders above Domino as an IMAP server. So I am currently very happy with this setup.
For those domains still on Domino: Check out Spartacus filter (see link in part 1).
Hallo Volker
Cyrus is a terrific application. From the viewpoint of IMAP/POP it is much much more advanced then Domino. And it has a build in language for filtering (the language is very well documented in a RFC) and other nice features, which you will not find in Domino Mail.
As for Spartacus filter: I am since serval years Windows free and since 4 years I am Windows free on the desktop as well. Spartacus may be okay (it is only available for Windows), but I am very much happy with DSPAM. DSPAM has over here a catch rate of 99.984% (I was only able to get higher numbers with CRM114, but DSPAM offers me more flexibility then CRM114). And since I run Domino not on Windows (since R5), I can not utilize Spartacus.
SMTP Auth: Ouch! Now I get your point. This is one of the reasons, why I have taken Domino away from the internet and have it now in the DMZ and Postfix with Cyrus / Courier (have serval servers) is doing the job and Domino is only getting mail from Postfix/Cyrus/Courier, but not directly from the internet. I have no time to do baby sitting with Domino all the time. So it just sits there and I avoid to touch it to much and tweak the hell out of the mail delivery in Domino. To much work and I hate it, when I get all this nasty errors about to new libraries and crashing JVM, just because I updated the system libraries.
Anyway... Now that I have learned and I have seen how easy it can be to use other email systems, I am turning more and more my back at Domino for mail. I love Domino for the application developmend, security and the power it has, but for mail? No. And I don't really see IBM pointing a vision or a clear strategy for Domino as messaging system (I am anyway very confused in terms of strategy/feature of Domino).
My helping offer still stays there. If you need help, just drop me a mail.
cheers
Stevan
