Topic: recommendations for mail access, please

[mophilly]

I have two users who want to access email using their desktop mail clients from outside the LAN. I would like to hear from others about this. That is, do you allow it? If so, how to do set it up? And so on.

For the record, the two users are important people in the organization, don't care for the web mail interface, and complain the VPN access is too slow. (deep sigh)

On a related topic, anyone have users of the iPhone using or asking about email?

All comments, suggestions, and wise cracks warmly accepted.

 - mo

[7eis]

Secure IMAP uses port 585
Secure POP3 uses port 995

You can also allow them to send email through the SME Server, check out the server-manager. I do not recall if a secure SMTP connection is available.

[janet]

7eis

I do not recall if a secure SMTP connection is available.

Yes it is. Look carefully in server manager.

[mophilly]

Thanks for the replies. I see the settings in the server manager.

A couple of follow up questions if I may...

Do you allow this access?
If so,
 - any caveats or restrictions?
 - do you prefer imap over pop3?

[dmay]

- do you prefer imap over pop3?

The major benefit to IMAP is mail is stored on the server and is therefore able to be accessed from any IMAP capable application on any Internet connected computer. POP3 is generally downloaded to a single computer and deleted from the server so becomes accessible only from that sole computer.

If webmail isnt to their liking this really isnt and issue as most e-mail programs support both IMAP/POP.

My personal preference is secure IMAP using webmail (and all its modules). However I also configure Thunderbird as a secondary IMAP client as I find it better when dealing with larger attachment sizes. The webmail interface tends to choke on messages with larger file attachments.

Darrell

[Elliott]

I have a few users (laptop users) who carry their computers home and on the road. I setup IMAPS for them and the are able to use their Thunderbird clients in either location.

The one caveat for our circumstance is that we run straight IMAP on the local and IMAPS on the external so they either need to accounts setup in their client or they need to alter the settings for their profile based on whether they're internal or external.

This may be specific to me. We found that IMAPS in house was causing plenty of too many users type errors even when I upped the threads to something like 10,000.

All in all it works great.

[mophilly]

Thanks for the replies; very helpful. I would have said so sooner but the seasonal demands were exceptional.

For anyone interested: we adopted secure IMAP for the external users, using either a client like Thunderbird or webmail as the user prefers. Everyone is happy.

[beakersloco]

sorry this was posted in the wrong thread

[chris burnat]

[quote
sorry this was posted in the wrong thread
[/quote]

No worries, lets move this topic to General Discussions, OK?