Topic: SME as an Exchange Frontend

[Mjohnson]

Hi all,

I have been expermenting with SME 6.01 for several months now.  I am impressed.  I certainly am no Linux guru, but have found my way around this disto rather nicely.  Hats off to all those making the effort to keep it live and well.  

I am at the point that I would like to use an SME 6.01 setup as a frontend mail relay for our offices' Exchange Server 2000.  I am looking for advice in setting it up. I have looked through the HowTo's and docuemnts and have found only the fine work on setting up a relay to another SME Box.  

My goal is to use the SME server as a spam and AV filter on inbound mail only.  My experimental setup works quite well using RBL filtering, SpamAssasin and ClamAV.  I am thinking this is an easy configuration, but I am not comfortable with experimenting with the company mail......

Any help/advice is appreciated

Thank in advance..

MJ

[shanen]

If you "delegate internal mail server" in server manger, prepare yourself for lots of bounced mail as sme will accept mail for "everyone"@yourdomain because it won't use local accounts. Unless you can drop them at the exchange box which is risky.
Does anybody know of a way to make mailfront do the following:
RBL - Cheers Ray for howto
Attachement Blocking - Cheers Ray for howto
Accept mail from valid users only - (maybe read from a text file)?

The mailfront contribs that allow username blocking I have tried doesn't work when sme is set to delegate to another mail server.
Sorry if this seems off topic but it will create additional work for you sifting through hundreds of emails.

BTW it might pay to turn off av and spam filtering first until you are satisfied that it works.
Install the sysmon rpm and watch the load on the server when you fire up clam, then spamassassin.
How many emails does your organisation receive a day as this has a direct affect on the amount of ram you need. Keep an eye on the swap file usage (use 512mg of ram to be safe)

[Mjohnson]

Thanks for the fast response

Good thoughts...

Our organization is small with under 10 users.  Mail amounts to a few hundred each day.

One thought is to set up accounts for the users on the SME box and filter on that basis.  I am not clear if the delegate server setting would allow for forwarding of user mail to the exchange box.

Setting up the additional users would not be difficult, though this is really only an option as long as the number of users is managable.

Possible?

[shanen]

Option 1.
Create user accounts on SME.
Forward each users mail individually to exchange in server manager. You may have to play around with what addy to use because exchange internal. Maybe a static name entry in SME pointing to Exchange will do the trick.
This option will only accept mail for users and Pseudonyms on SME.

Option 2.
Forget creating user accounts and delegate mail server in server manager.
All mail addressed to your domain is processed then forwarded to your delegated mail server in one big old heap.
Providing you have set up spam and clam contribs correctly, you won't have any problems.

[kmccarn]

I have set up 6 boxes in the last couple months for just this purpose.

The only time I actually set up users on the SME system is for people who need vpn access.

I use the email filtering and AV stuff from Dungog.net (and paid the fee - it was worth it)

And the spam with mrtg from Swerts-knudsen (great stuff)

I also start with the custom iso from Keanes of NZ - which allows several options that make life easier for exchange front end systems.

Feel free to contact me offline at kmccarn@va.homelinux.net  

[Mjohnson]

Thanks for the response's.  I will get busy and set up a box this week to test it out.  

I will post a response with the results.

Thanks again all....