[H-GEN] Exchange Woes

[Sarah Hollings]

Adrian Sutton wrote:
> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
> [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]
> 
> Hi all,
> Yesterday we discovered our primary domain controller and exchange 
> server had a hard drive crash.  This is the second time it's crashed in 
> the past year, last time it took a week to recover and it's looking bad 
> for this time as well, despite having some very knowledgeable Windows 
> server admins set up the backup system.
> 
> Basically, we need a more robust system in the face of catastrophic 
> disaster - particularly something that isn't tightly coupled with Active 
> Directory.  All we really use Active Directory for is to run exchange 
> which is only used for:
> 
> a) email.  Nothing fancy - about 15 users and 9GB of email data.
> b) Storing email in public folders.
> c) pretty basic calendar functions.  Reminders that pop up on screen and 
> grab your attention are a must here.

MTA:  Postfix + LDAP
          Fast, secure, and provides nice lookup of addresses from
          your MUA.

IMAP: Courier + LDAP
          The shared folder features of courier will do what you
          want depending on what you mean by "public folders".  The
          webmail client sqWebmail is very fast.

Calendar: Compromise - web shared appntmts or desktop app, you choose

       Courier comes with a calendar which allows shared appointments
       and a few of the usual calendar features.  Its considered
       "experimental" but it works and its fast.  I havent used it in a
       production environment.  There are other web-based systems
       such as PHPgroupware or IMP/Horde, these are slow compared to a
       desktop app.

       Evolution is a powerful replacement for other "full-featured"
       MUA/calendars that you might be on the lookout for...
       But it doesnt give you calendar sharing just by itself - you
       need something on the server side for that.  There are versions
       for most platforms[1].  And I think it does attention grabbing.

Recovery - disaster planning:
       Build all of the above on a cheap commodity server, using a
       Debian 3.0 stable install.  As simple as typing:
       apt-get install courier-ldap courier-imap-ssl postfix-ldap
       back up your mailstore and config daily to DDS3 tape with Amanda

> We don't use roaming profiles and can do without the central login 
> pretty easily.  We have a mix of windows, solaris and Mac clients though 
> accessing email and calendar is exclusively done from Windows atm.

The above mail stuff is a 1 day job to set up.  You could also extend 
LDAP to provide a Samba PDC - this might take a few days to get right.

> We have a Sun e250 server sitting around doing pretty much nothing that 
> could be used or a linux or windows server could be set up.  There is no 
> knowledge in the company of server administration at all but a 
> particular fear of UNIX systems.

This would be OK, the sparc version of debian would install and you get 
SCSI for your DDS3 for free - or maybe the e250 already has a tape drive.

> Since there's a whole bunch of very talented sys admins around here that 
> mostly don't use exchange - what systems could we put in place?  Muchos 
> bonus points if it's free - even more if you can come up with a way to 
> convince people that we can maintain it easily (there's no sysadmin in 
> this company, just a bunch of programmers).

The above software is all Free.  Maybe if you want to avoid further data 
losses, but dont have a SysAdmin to set things up you should hire one on 
contract.

Cancel the licences for
      Exchange 2000
      Windows 2000 Server (and 2 x 10 cal packs)
      proprietary backup software and
     "Open files agent" (for the MS Jet database in Exchange Server)
Should give you around $10,000 to play with.

Rgds,
-- 
Sarah Hollings                     IT Manager
sarah at humanfactors.uq.edu.au       The ARC Key Centre
Ph +61 7 33656080                  for Human Factors and
Mb +61 416 045401                  Applied Cognitive Psychology


[1]:  Not for Windows - but you already have a very big MUA/Calendar 
program for Windows.  If that's what people are using just buy your MS 
desktop o/s licence, then your office productivity software licence - 
renew, subscribe, patch, lather, rinse and repeat as necessary.

Mac OSX comes with the excellent iCal in the cost of the desktop o/s.