NethServer for dummies: Email server

#NethServer for Dummies
##Email Server

For 99% of businesses emails are vital.
If you plan to add, replace, migrating, reorganize an email system very often is a critical mission because in many (many) cases people abuse of email and you need a very good analysis to plan what, how, when to do.
In the next paragraph you will find some guidelines, best practices and tips to acquire most information as possible to plan your work.

##Starting analysis
Check list

  • emails are managed with a server inside the company or provided as a service by an ISP?
  • if an email server exist it is able to receive emails directly or it collects them from ISP?
  • how many domains exist example.com, example.net etc.?
  • how many email accounts exist?
  • how many email aliases exist?
  • how many email accounts are shared between two or more users?
  • are there redirect, autoresponder etc.?
  • does all email accounts and aliases are used for all existent domains?
  • does it need to access email accounts from outside the company?

On NethServer
NethServer is an amazing solution to manage email thanks to its modularity, see how.
When you will have collected all information from the checklist above you have to use it to operate in one of these two classic scenarios:

A) The company has an internal email server such as: Microsoft Exchange, MDaemon, Zimbra etc.If the old server collects emails from ISP plan to stop this task and start it on NethServer.If the old server receives emails directly through MX record most of times you just need to forward SMTP traffic to NethServer private IP address.Finally to copy emails for each accounts from the old server to NethServer you have two options:

  • for each email client (eg. Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, other) add the new IMAP account on NethServer, select all emails from the old account and copy them to the new one a folder at a time.
  • using a popular script called imapsync to copy emails of all accounts directly from the old email server to NethServer through the IMAP protocol.

B) The company has not an internal email server and use email as a service provided by an ISP. For each email client (eg. Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird) add the new IMAP account on NethServer, select all emails from the old account and copy them to the new one a folder at a time.

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I moved a post to a new topic: SOGo installation and configuration

is there a step by step how to on installing/configuring a email server?

Nice! Could it be a new “getting started” howto. What do you think @sitz?

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Hi @motwa

not precisely.
I’m working (with a few delay :disappointed_relieved:) to the second episode of this guide.
As @alefattorini already knows I like howtos but in my mind the NethServer for dummies series are a track to follow, understand and make practice with some most used functionality of the distro.
Is what you are looking for?

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Oh come on buddy! We’re waiting for your work…

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