# Small Business Mail Server and Groupware

## lisnalinchy

Hi,

I am currently setting up a mail and groupware server for a small business (10 employees).  I am after some advice about which route to take for ease of use and maintenance as well as expandability (maybe up to 50 users).

At present our ISP hosts out domain and provides a mail feed (pop) which allows anyname@ourdomain.com.  What I need to do is:

1: Download, spam filter and antivirus the incoming mail on a regular basis (ever couple of minutes) from the ISP

2: Move and parse the mail into an imap server so that each person gets their own mail in their own account (ever user will have an account on the Gentoo server where they can store documents etc).

3: Provide secure webmail to these imap accounts

4: Provide group wide shared email folders (e.g. for online shop queries etc) that everyone can see and action

5: Setup and provide individual and group calendering facilities

6: A way to manage all this easily.

What I really need is a good howto on the mail front and any recommendations as to which software to use for both mail and groupware.

I have had a look at the "Email system for the home network" howto and it seems to provide most things on the mail front but it does not scale well (according to the documentation).

Can any[/list]one help me out on this?

Cheers

Mike

----------

## kiksen

The wiki has excellent docs on the mail front. Virtual users might be what your'e looking for if you want to scale. But if all users have accounts on the server anyway... but a mysql/pgsql for mail account administration will make life a little easier.

As for groupware:

Are clients windows or linux boxes? If they are windows boxes and want to run outlook you could look at www.kolab.org - that's an all-in-one package. Outlook connectors are not free however.

moregroupware might be an option too (as well as egroupware, phpgroupware).

/søren

----------

## lisnalinchy

So thats what Virtual Mailhosting means (doh!).  I will run with the Virtual mailhosting guide and see how things go. My only question is how fetchmail (or equiv) would fit into this.  We have one account that all mail goes into and our ISP is reluctant to point their mx record to our server.

As for groupware, linking to outlook would be nice but not essential.  As long as there is a web based frontend, that should be fine.

Cheers

Mike.

----------

## kiksen

fetchmail will fit in fine. As far as I remember it's even mentioned in one of the how-to's

/søren

----------

## yakapiece

unless I'm incorrect, there is no way to share calendars with any available groupware software.  Also finding a free connector for outlook to that groupware product is near impossible.  Things might have changed in the last year, but this is from my experience.

----------

## kiksen

yakapiece, your right about the outlook connector for kolab2 (still in beta... beta4 though). It costs around $14 per license.

Dunno what you mean about sharing calender. In egroupware for example, you can watch a group of peoples calender if you wish.

/søren

----------

## bone

I actually have employeed groupoffice groupware on my lan at home. It can pick up pop or imap accounts in its email plugin which makes it also nice for a complete all in one groupware package. Give it a look over.

jt

----------

## lisnalinchy

Cheers for all the replies.  I have a few packages to try out now.  Basically what I needed was a groupware app that staff can log into for their personal mail and calendars as well as being able to view a staff wide (shared) mail folder and at least one staff wide calendar.  In both cases the staff should be able to modify the calendar and action the mail.

I have set up a virtual mail server and hooked in fetchmail and its is working spot on (even includes anti-virus and anti-spam  :Smile:  ).  I have requested that their ISP add a second higher priority MX record to their domain to point  to this new server, so that will be the next challenge (with the ISPs hosted service as a backup should it fail).  As far as I know it is all set up and ready to go.

I think the best way to go is to run a few tests on opengroupware, egroupware, kolab and open exchange.  In your opinion and experience, which one is the easiest to setup and manage that supports calendars and web mail?  

Cheers

Mike

----------

## lisnalinchy

Well the choice is down to groupoffice or moregroupware and I think I am going with moregroupware.   Of all the ones I have looked, these two looked the most professional with the easiest to read calendars.  I think that moregroupware is the easier to set up and configure as well as the easier to share data, calendars etc with.  If anyone has any other suggestions to try, I am all ears.

Cheers for all the help

Mike.

----------

## ZippyJay

lisnalinchy,

What did you choose in the end for your groupware solution?  Were you happy with it?  

Just curious.

----------

## imanassypov

:?:Hi guys,

I need just a subset of groupware functionality - file sharing point. I need a solution that would allow me to host files in some sort of database with easy web access. Does anything come to your mind?

Thanks!

----------

