Forum OpenACS Q&A: Discussion for hub and spoke mail system

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1: Discussion for hub and spoke mail system
Posted by Andrew Smith on 03/21/02 07:43 AM 

Hi

A Linux system has to spread over multilocation, 

This will be a HUB & Spoke (star) environment In which all spokes are
remotely located 

1) Linux Box 1 with X users should be able to connect to the Internet
and send & receive mails.(HUB Server) .
2) Linux Box 2 with Y users and mails being routed through HUB server
3) Linux Box 3 with Z Users and mails being routed through HUB server
4) Linux Box 4 with W Users and mails being routed through HUB server

5 in all from the group of X,Y,Z,W will be roaming users 

what would be an appropriate Linux based messaging soln for this
scenario. 

And Can openacs play a role in this architechture
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2: Response to Discussion for hub and spoke mail system (response to 1)
Posted by Marc Spitzer on 03/21/02 05:37 PM
if I remember correctly qmail has a ldap intergration addon that could handle roaming users.  But if all users are roaming then how do you get the mail to the right box?  y1 on box2 goes to check his mail in box3, how does he get it?  It sounds like you need an imap/smtp server that everyone can connect to from the lan, you might want to block imap from the internet though.

Look at qmail, imap server cyrus(spelled right?) and lock down the smtp/imap server.

marc

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3: Funny place to ask an email question... but (response to 1)
Posted by Anthony Barker on 03/27/02 12:45 AM
If all the machines are connected to the internet directly I would use the internet to route mail directly instead of hub spoke. Use SMTPAUTH or POP before SMTP to authenticate the users and allow them to email while remotely roaming on the internet (assuming no vpn).

naming convention is eg mailto:john.smith@sg.company.com, where sg is the location code - this is the way IBM does it and makes the most sense.

If the company has one main mail server (firewall etc) and the machines are connected via a vpn private network then HUB-SPOKE is fine..

Openacs makes sense for workflow and document sharing - for email I might use SquirrelMail (PHP based IMAP/POP) for webmail. It seems the most actively developed and works fine (I have also looked at IMP and others).

As far as mailer I recommend postfix(Exim is also excellent), it is a pleasure to work with. I don't like the qmail licensing or documentation (have a look at the code - almost no comments in it at all). But any of the mtas -  EXIM, Postfix, Qmail or Sendmail would all do fine.

Email me if you have more questions,

Anthony

http://www.xminc.com/anthony/

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4: Response to Discussion for hub and spoke mail system (response to 1)
Posted by Mat Kovach on 03/27/02 03:22 AM
On the mail side, you'd have to some sort of routing (Ain't I helpful) with pop/imap servers that understand the routing or run some sort of shared storage (NFS, etc) and each box could server pop/imap clients (but some would be slow).

QmalLdap has the functionality built into it, Postfix and Sendmail will allow mapping with LDAP.  Your pop/imap server will be the difficult ones to find.

SMTPAUTH is a nice solution, but still can be buggy depending on your MUA.  Pop before Relay is still your best bet.  In this distributed setup, you'll want to the pop-before-reply database shared among your servers.

OpenACS really doesn't have a mail server or routing controls built into it.  So about the best we can offer right now is advice.