Topic: Replacing SBS2003, don't need mail functionality.

[Plecebo]

First off, congrats on what looks like a great server you guys have put together. I'm fairly new, but I'm downloading 7.4 as we speak to play around with it. I would like to consider it as a replacement for SBS2003 which my company currently uses. I have a few basic questions that I was hoping someone could provide some insight on.

Firstly we use SBS2003 MOSTLY as a way to do profile roaming and centralized file/pring sharing. We were using exchange, but it was horrific in the amount of effort it required just to keep emails delivering to my users while filtering SOME spam. We dropped Exchange in exchange (LOL look at how funny I am) for a google apps solution which has been workin VERY well for us over the past few months.

I guess my question is, how easy is it to NOT install the mail hosting apps in SME? I understand my requirements are VERY basic, and going with a "build your own" server with just the components we would use might be a "better" way to go. But one thing I can give MS is the way they make system configuration and maintenance easy. That is part of what I liked so much in browsing the documentation here.

So if I just want these componenets:

• Firewall
• Antivirus support
• Domain style login and profiles (roaming etc)
• Ability to administer remotely
• File/Print sharing with permissions etc
• Ability to backup to a NAS

How well would SME do without the other "fluff" (at least in my case)?

Also it would be awesome if I could integrate the Single Sign On ability of the Google Apps (using SAML if I understand) into the LDAP directory so that a user would not have to sign into the hosted google apps, just log into the computer.

I know this is a general topic, but at the moment I'm in information gatherer mode, so any information is helpful

[David Harper]

Firewall

Built in if you use SME as a gateway - i.e. one NIC for external and one NIC for internal.

Antivirus support

You can configure the built in antivirus scanner to do a daily scan of the filesystem. You'll still need some kind of desktop antivirus package, however.

Domain style login and profiles (roaming etc)

Built in, BUT SME Server emulates Windows NT 4.0, not Windows 2000/Active Directory. In practice, this means very little except for the lack of domain-wide Group Policies; SME Server supports a single NT4-style policy in the NETLOGON share.

Ability to administer remotely

Built in, you just have to enable it.

File/Print sharing with permissions etc

SME Server generally relies on per-share permissions rather than per-file ones. It can certainly share files and printers.

Ability to backup to a NAS

Built in.

[gzartman]

I guess my question is, how easy is it to NOT install the mail hosting apps in SME? I understand my requirements are VERY basic, and going with a "build your own" server with just the components we would use might be a "better" way to go. But one thing I can give MS is the way they make system configuration and maintenance easy. That is part of what I liked so much in browsing the documentation here.

....
How well would SME do without the other "fluff" (at least in my case)?

You don't have the option not to install the core features designed into SME Server.  However, you can disable most of them if you don't want to use them.

I will say that SME's mail server functionality is probably one of its strongest points.  It is very good at spam prevention.

To directly answer your question:  You don't have a choice not to install the mail server components in SME.  However, you have the option to just not use it.  SME will continue to use it's built in mail server to send server related email to the administrator account.

One thing SME does not have is fluff.  It is pretty lean and mean.

[MSmith]

What you could do is go back to Exchange, but use an SME server in front of it to preprocess the email, dropping spam and viruses.  I have this working at several sites with SME in front of old Exchange 5.5 installs that still work fine.  So your router would pass port 25 traffic to the SME server (or the SME server can act as your gateway/router), which would then filter the incoming mail stream and pass it along on port 25 to the Exchange box.  With a bit of tweaking and the use of blacklists you can easily drop 80-85% of spam with no false positives.

[compdoc]

For my small company, I replaced Exchange with SME. Its a great little email server with enough options to get it working in most any environment.

But I also use SME to filter spam and viruses for Exchange for a few customers. One uses SBS 2003 w/ Exchange 2003.

There are benefits to going linux, mainly in terms cost. But Exchange 2003 is a pretty darn useful tool. For example, the ability to easily manage and backup mailboxes. 2003 is very fast and very stable. It would be a shame if you couldnt continue to use it...

You have to apply Exchange Service Pack 2 to get it, but Exchange now has spam filtering abilities. I haven't set it up yet, because Im just learning about it, but it looks to do some intelligent stuff concerning filtering spam.

If you place SME in front of Exchange, and have both filtering spam (and viruses with SME), I'd think your users would be happy with the results...

By the way, if you did set that up, and you have users that send mail remotely, you need to have them use a different port than 25 when they relay through the Exchange server. This is needed to bypass the SME in front of it...