Does Nethserver allow for delegation of mail to other users and other mail questions?

[greavette (Charles)]

Hi Team,

I know there is WebTop and SOGO mail in Nethserver but I’m investigating other options. Right now I’m looking for information or anyones advice on using either Roundcube or Nextcloud Mail app connecting to Nethserver mail. My main two requirements are:

• I need to be able to delegate one of our mail accounts/address so multiple people can read and use (read, send) emails from this email address. This is because we have a common email address which clients use. We have 3 secretaries as well as the owners who will need access to this email account. If I use Roundcube or Nextcloud Mail App, where would I setup this delegation? Is there a setting within Nethserver email addresses that would allow for this delegation?
• My intention is to heavily leverage our Nextcloud running on Nethserver where I can. I’m very interested in using the Nextcloud Contacts app for all of our Office contact repo. Therefore it makes sense to have our Nextcloud Contacts also our addressbook for any mail client we use. Does anyone know or have experience with connecting Roundcube or Nextcloud Mail to use the Nextcloud Contacts for it’s addressbook using cardav? I don’t believe Webtop allows for this ability though I may be wrong on this point.
  If I’m planning on using my Nethserver as a mail server, would anyone like to provide their opinion on which mail module I should use? I see there are modules called Email and Email2 (beta). When I was testing Webtop I see that installing the Webtop module automatically installed the Email module. Should I look to use Email 2 (beta) as this is going to be the go forward module? Can both Email and Email 2 (beta) be installed at the same time?

any advice or suggestions provided would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[mrmarkuz (Markus Neuberger)]

If I use Roundcube or Nextcloud Mail App, where would I setup this delegation?

You may use a shared mailbox and set some users to access it.

http://docs.nethserver.org/en/v7/mail.html#email-addresses

In roundcube you may set identities for the users of the shared mailbox to make “send as” work.

Should I look to use Email 2 (beta) as this is going to be the go forward module?

Yes but it’s still beta so you it depends on your environment.

I don’t believe Webtop allows for this ability though I may be wrong on this point.

Webtop can handle carddav:

http://docs.nethserver.org/en/v7/webtop5.html#subscribing-remote-resources

Can both Email and Email 2 (beta) be installed at the same time?

No, you have to choose one.

[greavette (Charles)]

Hello @mrmarkuz and thank you for this reply. I didn’t realize that Webtop could handle using our contacts from Nextcloud using carddav. I’ll have to take another look at Webtop.

Few more questions for you:

Are you aware of a comparison between Email and Email 2 that would hiltite the pros/cons of each? I’m not sure if I begin using Email how easy it will be to switch to Email2 if that does become the preferred mail client in Nethserver.

I’m reading through the documentation you provided to me with regards to shared mailboxes. Does this shared mailbox need to have a user created in Users and Groups? Or do we simply create user accounts for each of our employees under User and Groups, then setup a shared mailbox under Email Addresses > Shared Mailboxes and add in the groups of users who will have access to this shared mailbox? Let me see how this scenario would work then so you can provide comment. Would I do the following:

Create a user account called sally and Sally would have an email address called sally@mydomain.com. I assign sally to a group called secretaries.
In Email Addresses and under the Shared Mailbox Tab I create a shared mailbox with a name of ‘generalmail’ and I add the owner group of secretaries.

How do I ensure that our shared mailbox will have an email address of generalmail@mydomain.com? Do I name the shared mailbox generalmail@mydomain.com or do I use the Alias field to give this shared mailbox the full email account we want our customers to use when they send us an email.

Now what if I wanted sally to have an account in Nethserver but I don’t want Sally to have her own email address (sally@mydomain.com). What if I wanted Sally to only use the generalmail@mydomain.com. So when Sally logs into our mail server with her sally account ID, the only mail she will see is the generalmail@mydomain.com mail?

Once I’ve setup this shared mailbox called generalmail, I also want the owner Bob to have access to his own mail - bob@mydomain.com and I want Bob to be able to view and administer mail from the shared mailbox that Sally uses - generalmail@mydomain.com.

Sorry, lots of questions here but I want to make sure I’m setting this up correctly.

Thank you.

[mrmarkuz (Markus Neuberger)]

Are you aware of a comparison between Email and Email 2 that would hiltite the pros/cons of each?

AFAIK Email 2 uses rspamd whileas Email uses amavisd:

http://docs.nethserver.org/en/v7/mail2.html

I’m not sure if I begin using Email how easy it will be to switch to Email2 if that does become the preferred mail client in Nethserver.

You may switch anytime with following procedure:

http://docs.nethserver.org/en/v7/mail2.html#mail2-upgrade-procedures-section

Does this shared mailbox need to have a user created in Users and Groups?

No.

Or do we simply create user accounts for each of our employees under User and Groups, then setup a shared mailbox under Email Addresses > Shared Mailboxes and add in the groups of users who will have access to this shared mailbox?

Yes. You may have to subscribe to the new shared mailbox as user (I use the shared mailbox info in roundcube as example):

How do I ensure that our shared mailbox will have an email address of generalmail@mydomain.com?

It’s done via the mail alias. When creating the shared mailbox, you may create an alias.

What if I wanted Sally to only use the generalmail@mydomain.com. So when Sally logs into our mail server with her sally account ID, the only mail she will see is the generalmail@mydomain.com mail?

A user has a mailbox by default. You may setup no alias for sally@mydomain.com so Sally won’t get mails. Sally is still able to see the shared mailbox.

I want Bob to be able to view and administer mail from the shared mailbox that Sally uses - generalmail@mydomain.com.

Just add Bob to the access group you defined in the shared mailbox and it should work.