Re: Recommended IMAP server

chris-usenet_at_roaima.co.uk
Date: 11/25/05 

Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 15:56:58 +0000

David Brown <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> wrote:
> I'm planning on setting up an IMAP server on a Debian system in the near
> future. We're a small company, with two domains and about 25-30 users.

Dovecot. Simple, fast, and reliable. The best thing (for me) about
Dovecot is that it leaves your mail files in a readable format, so if
all else fails you can still read/search your emails.

> We currently have exim4 on the Debian [...]

Sounds good. I run exim (3) here, too. (I'm gradually migrating to
exim4.)

> At the moment, we get some incoming email through a DomainPOP box (i.e.,
> an external pop3 mailbox collecting all mail for a domain) which is
> split into individual pop3 boxes by the pop3 server. Support for this
> arrangement is not critical, as we'll be changing to more standard smtp
> before long, and in the mean time I can always use fetchmail to get mail
> from the old pop3 server.

Would definitely recommend fetchmail if you have to collect email from a
POP3/IMAP mailbox. Direct SMTP is to be preferred though.

> Clients run a variety of Thunderbird, Outlook, Outlook Express, and
> probably others. Webmail of some sort would also be useful.

Squirrelmail works nicely with dovecot, as do the mail clients you've named.

> Virtual users support would be an advantage, but not a necessity.

I believe dovecot does virtual users but I've never bothered with that
here as I have only a few users.

> Integration with Spam Assassin (or another spam filter) is essential

Absolutely.

> as is an easy way for users to interact with the spam filter.

Ah. I run spamassassin "inside" exim, so it runs with no knowledge of
users' individual preferences. However, it still seems pretty good: I'm
not aware of failed-but-valid emails and I for one get very few
passed-but-spam mails now.

> Integration with ClamAV is essential, as is being able to add my own
> filters (for example, I have a policy of stripping all exe files,
> including pif, scr, etc., from incoming emails).

I also use ClamAV here, running "inside" exim.

> I also need to be able to sanitise html emails to remove javascript, and
> that sort of thing. I realise that's not part of the IMAP server as
> such, but I need the server to be able to integrate easily this sort of
> filter.

No idea.

> Many thanks for any ideas, comments or links.

I tried cyrus, but couldn't even get it to work properly. (Why /should/
I have to understand the guts of SASL?) Both it and Courier seem to
provide a complete IMAP solution, which is a pain if it doesn't seem to
do exactly what you want. On the other hand, it's a right pain running
sieve or even exim filters with dovecot - I gave up on that idea.

Chris

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