Topic: Webmail

[russs]

Hi, still getting to grips with SME 6.01 and loving it! Have it installed as my webserver and have a few questions.

I have just turned on the built-in Webmail (Horde-based I think), when accessed internally it works fine but when accessing from the Web it doesn't come up, just a firewall thing I imagine but just want to check I have the correct settings.

I also wish to access my Mail Server through it which is on another Server inside my firewall, is this accomplished easily?

Lastly, how should I setup Apache to allow a link on my main Web page to redirect to another server inside the firewall which does not have a public IP address? I wish to allow access to my intranet from the web.

Apologies about all the questions and sorry if I'm not clear enough!

[hordeusr]

What are you using for a firewall?  Most of what you want to do is a matter of port forwarding on the firewall.  That is, forwarding the port used by each service to the correct location.  

"Lastly, how should I setup Apache to allow a link on my main Web page to redirect to another server inside the firewall which does not have a public IP address? I wish to allow access to my intranet from the web."
Are you linking to another webpage?  What exactly are you trying to allow access to?  Proxypass may be a solution...

[russs]

Thanks for such a quick reply. It's only a Netgear cheapo firewall, a DG834, does the job though. So I should direct the SMTP port towards my Mailserver yes?
Ah, one more thing, my username on SME Webserver is just my firstname with first surname letter ('robertj' for example), whereas my mailserver is a Windows 2003 server and the email name is in the format 'robert.j'. As Linux doesn't like the dot in the name I can't replicate that name in SME. Is this where 'Pseudonyms' come in or is there an easy way round this apart from changing all my users email address formats?

Oh, and I'm trying to connect to 'egroupware' on a CentOS 4 server.

Thanks again!

p.s. I bet you are wishing you had just skipped past this post now, eh hordeusr!

[hordeusr]

Thanks for such a quick reply. It's only a Netgear cheapo firewall, a DG834, does the job though. So I should direct the SMTP port towards my Mailserver yes?

If you want incoming mail to reach your mailserver, yes.  If you want external webmail access you need to also forward the http and https ports to the webmail server.  If you want access to your mail server, you need to forward the imap and pop ports to the mail server.

Ah, one more thing, my username on SME Webserver is just my firstname with first surname letter ('robertj' for example), whereas my mailserver is a Windows 2003 server and the email name is in the format 'robert.j'. As Linux doesn't like the dot in the name I can't replicate that name in SME. Is this where 'Pseudonyms' come in or is there an easy way round this apart from changing all my users email address formats?

Look at the pseudonyms.  It automatically creates a firstname.lastname pseudonym.  When you create a user you could use the initial for the last name and it should create a pseudonym you need automatically.  

Oh, and I'm trying to connect to 'egroupware' on a CentOS 4 server.  Connect to how?  You are already port forwarding http and https to the webmail server above.  If you want a groupware solution, update to the latest horde/imp/etc...  It's a nice groupware solution.  

So, which server do you use for mail?  You can set-up horde/imp to login to a different mail server (your windows 2003 mail server) if need be.

[russs]

Thanks again, I think I'll have to re-think my groupware and mail server ideas. As I can only direct each type of port once then obviously I'm not going to be able to have several different HTTP server locations, I had a quick look at Horde yesterday and will investigate further, however I would like to recommend 'eGroupware' too!
Unfortunately I don't want to do away with my Mailserver, it has VPOP3 running on it in Windows 2003 and I have not found a Linux alternative that has a proper gui and is so user-friendly. It's not that I'm 'config-file' phobic, it's just that my Sales people would kill me if I experiment unsuccessfully with their 'precious' email!
If there is an SME contrib that does this well or you know a better Linux way than this then I'm open to suggestions as it would allow me to do away with one of our few remaining Windows Servers and save us a fortune in CALS!
Thansk again.