Topic: how many user can SME handle?

[elg3ne]

just want to ask how many simultaneous users SME server can handle?

we have an office with approximately 300 users. of course those 300 users will not access the SME at the same time. let say about 50 users. i will use it as email server & fileserver

my hardware will be core2quad, 4gb ram, 2tb hd.

thanks

[paradigm]

I believe this depends on what the users are doing (mail , vpn , spam , ) , and your hardware  ,

For example 50 users writing and reading files from 1 hard disk at the same time does look problematic to me...

Also are planing to use any heavy contribs (www filtering and so on, ) which could be also pretty heavy on your

Hardware.

In a setup like this you would need backup domain controllers which sme does not support , and some thing

Which resembles Microsoft's DFS , which to my knowledge sme does not support also .

[sal1504]

elg3ne

I have two customers that have over 250 workstations. Both customers are medical related. In both cases there are multiple smeservers. Each workgroup has a server dedicated to there department running custom applications designed for their speciality. I then have one powerful server strictly for data storage. I have a seperate server for their web/mail/vpn. This may seem excessive, but hardware is relative inexpensive and if setup properly it will provide redundancy. Your hardware is what i would use for the workgroup servers, but for the data server I would recommend something in the line of 2 quad core processors with at minimum 16 to 24 gb ram and a sas raid 5, 10 or 60 array. One of my customers is in the process of installing a second data server with rsync as a replication server in case one fails.  As far as needing a secondary domain server, I have never in 20 years needed a second domain controller and if you really need one look at this article.  http://wiki.contribs.org/Advanced_Samba 

This approach may be older and require a little bit more administration, but for me it has worked with out problems for several years and my clients feel the extra manual administration is more reliable. Hope this information helps.

Sal1504

[elg3ne]

thanks guys for the replies...

basically below is what i want to accomplish with SME...

* install SME for email server & fileserver only
* both system will have its own hardware (the one i mentioned in my 1st post)

@paradigm

users will only download emails from the SME, of course with spam filtering & virus scanning
basically this server is dedicated for email only... i think the hardware kill only will happen when all 50 users
simultaneously download emails at the same time

@sal1504

i can do separate fileserver for each workgroup, since the hardware is a donation only i want to utilize this one... buying for a powerful server right now is not on the priority

for email server, im not sure how i can make a separate mailbox server for 1 domain only.. any idea?

thanks

[paradigm]

This does look like an interesting approach sal (and vary creative) , but looks

A Little manually intensive to me , you would have to create 3 user account for

Every user multiply by 250 would give you 750 accounts to administrate in 3

Different places .

elg3ne :

your server have no problem serving as a mail server for 50 users or

Even more , just use at least 2 hard disks for a good fail over plan.

How many work groups do you intend to have ? , or in a diffrent angle :

how many users will be writing and reading from every workgroup server ?

for email server, im not sure how i can make a separate mailbox server for 1 domain only.. any idea?

This is the default install in sme mail server for one domain only

[elg3ne]

paradigm thanks for the reply...but what do you mean by fail over plan? is it installing the system on 1hd & the data will be on the other hd? sorry for asking too much
my hardware has 2x1TB hd.

im planning to put 5 workgroup server and for every workgroup, maybe 15 or 20 users only...

yes.. default install of SME is for one domain only... but i was thinking if i can do something like 2 mailbox that will check if the user exist on the 1st box then it will try the 2nd box.

[janet]

elg3ne

It really does depend on what services users will need to access and whether they run apps on the server (eg webmail) concurrently.
That server spec should be capable of handling the number of users, but you probably should double the RAM, or even more if it proves necessary in time.

Setup a second sme server (either onsite or off), as an Affa backup server so that you can quickly "rise" it to production status, see Affa contrib Howto.
Also add in one or two removable USB disks for additional onsite backup protection.

See the Email FAQ re how to delegate/forward email (for one or mutiple domains) to other sme servers.

[paradigm]

paradigm thanks for the reply...but what do you mean by fail over plan? is it installing the system on 1hd & the data will be on the other hd? sorry for asking too much
my hardware has 2x1TB hd.

I was talking about using at least raid 1 , didn't know you had 2 hard disks.

I would go for two servers :

Server 1 for email , vpn , webmail (same spec of hardware but use more RAM).

Server 2 as Domain controller and file server - here i would use more then 2

Hard disks (the more the better) with a hardware raid of 5 or better

(Using more RAM on the second server is also recommended).

Setup a second sme server (either onsite or off), as an Affa backup server so that you can quickly "rise" it to production status, see Affa contrib Howto.
Also add in one or two removable USB disks for additional onsite backup protection.

That is a great Idea using Affa , you can put two identical servers some where

Alse in the building or even out side of the building .

Another point to remember is that backing up 1 TB of date will take along

Time (how much i don't know).

How will your network look like ? what are you using as a gateway ?

[janet]

paradigm & elg3ne

That is a great Idea using Affa , you can put two identical servers some where.... backing up 1 TB of date will take along Time....

Yes that's correct, it may take many hours to backup a full 1TB.

If using an Affa backup server offsite, then when you do the first full backup, the Affa server should be onsite (reconfigured for and connected to the LAN), to allow the backup to complete in a reasonable timeframe eg either the first day or the second day if necessary. Affa will continue on from where it had backup up to when it times out (after 24 hours typically).

Then move the Affa server offsite, and only incremental changes will be backed up across the Internet (so you won't always be backing up 1TB worth of data).

[elg3ne]

@mary

webmail will be enabled on my SME email server.
i can add more ram on my current hardware, any idea how much ram can SME detect?

on regards to backup, i have already 1x1tb western digital.
i will check out Affa backup, thanks for the hint

i am also very much interested on this email delagation, correct me if im wrong
but as far as i can understand this one is for forwarding emails to a different domain
but what i want to do is delegate half of my user to another SME box. not sure if it is possible though.

@paradigm

thanks for the suggestion, i was thinking this setup to, but since i have 5 spare hardware,
i will make 2 dc & fserver. but i want also to setup 2 emailbox with one domain. im still searching the net if it is possible.

yep.. a 1tb data files will take long to backup.. but as mary said, i will just do incremental backups

my setup will be like this...

               ISP
                |
             Modem
                |
        DualWan router
                |
             Switch
 -----------------------------------
 |        |         |      |                   |
SME1 SME2  SME3 SME4  Cables going to 1,2 & 3 floor
Mail   Mail     File    File     |           |         |           |
                              Switch  Switch  Switch   Switch
                                |              |             |             |
                            WStation WStation WStation WStation

Thanks mary & paradigm for the help.

[paradigm]

i can add more ram on my current hardware, any idea how much ram can SME detect?

About memory have a look here :

http://wiki.contribs.org/SME_Server:Documentation:FAQ#Memory_usage_and_limits

i am also very much interested on this email delagation, correct me if im wrong
but as far as i can understand this one is for forwarding emails to a different domain
but what i want to do is delegate half of my user to another SME box. not sure if it is possible though.

I don't think this is possible , how will sme know which email to send to which account ?

Unless of course they are on a diffrent domain.

my setup will be like this...

               ISP
                |
             Modem
                |
        DualWan router
                |
             Switch
 -----------------------------------
 |        |         |      |                   |
SME1 SME2  SME3 SME4  Cables going to 1,2 & 3 floor
Mail   Mail     File    File     |           |         |           |
                              Switch  Switch  Switch   Switch
                                |              |             |             |
                            WStation WStation WStation WStation

300 users will require a beefy router (vpn , internet browsing , 300 mail accounts , and so on ....) what are you

Going to use as a router ?

thanks for the suggestion, i was thinking this setup to, but since i have 5 spare hardware,
i will make 2 dc & fserver.     

If you can get one more server you can have a great setup :

1 mail server , 2 file servers ,

and 3 backup servers for them using Affa , a very rock solid fail over plan !

[sal1504]

Paradigm

Setting up the users was actually quite easy. I setup the mail server first and added all 250 users, groups and permissions. I then did a tape backup of this server and restored it to the fileserver and workgroup servers. This put all the users groups and permissions for all 250 initial users on all servers. I then went to each server added the ibays and workgroup specific changes. Now all i need to do is when there is a new employee is add that one user to the three computers.

Mary

I have never used AFFA how does it compare to rsync?

[elg3ne]

thanks for the info paradigm, SME is getting more & more interested for me
after, reading the memory limits, definitely i will add more ram on my SME, my mobo has 4mem slots of ddr2

about the email, i just thought that there is a thing that can do username detection, eg.
if incoming mail address is not found on the server,
then forward it to 2nd mail server,
else received the mail

hmmm... something pop-out on my mind :-0...
lets say i have 300 users...
what if i setup my 1st mail server as 1st.domain.com (i will put all 300 users here or maybe it is not needed, maybe half user only (150)),

then setup my 2nd mail server as 2nd.domain.com (and put the other half users(150))

after that i will setup an mail alias in 1st server that eg.
email151@1st.domain.com alias to email151@2nd.domain.com
email152@1st.domain.com alias to email152@2nd.domain.com

then on the users side, their email address will still be at 1st.domain.com
in this case, i think the 1st server will not be that loaded in terms of user's accessing their email because some of them will be downloading & accessing emails from 2nd server.

i hope you understand what i am trying to say but i think it might work

on regards to router, currently we have draytek vigor3300 multiwan security router, it is working fine and according to their support it can handle up to 100+ simultaneous users which i think can handle my current usage

on the fail over side, i have 7 box i can utilize them all for this purpose only... but one question, is the fail over setup you are saying will activate on demand? let say my primary server bug down due to hardware failure, is the backup server will activate as primary? or it is just a backup & restore solution?

thanks

[janet]

sal1504

I have never used AFFA how does it compare to rsync?

Affa uses rsync. The other features of Affa make it very versatile.
See the wiki articles re Affa.

[janet]

elg3ne

eg. if incoming mail address is not found on the server...

sme by default will reject email for unknown users

In the Users panel in server manager you can forward email on a per user basis to any other desired address ie to an email address on another local server.

Users already will receive email for all domains setup on sme server, so if you setup the main domain1 and a virtual domain2, and then you only advertise users1-150 as being on domain1 and users151-300 as being on domain2, then the requirement to send to different domains for a range of users is already supported. See the Pseudonyms section of the manual.

Then (theoretically) you can delegate all mail for those domain2 users to another server using the db commands referred to in the Email FAQ.

Fail over protection is not currently supported by sme, although the tools exist externally I'm not aware of any current documented implementation, so it would be something you will need to develop. Search the forums for previous comment re this, and go back a year, two or three & more.

Affa can act as a backup server and using the rise function can quickly (ie 10 - 20 minutes) be risen to replace a faulty production server.

[elg3ne]

In the Users panel in server manager you can forward email on a per user basis to any other desired address ie to an email address on another local server.

Users already will receive email for all domains setup on sme server, so if you setup the main domain1 and a virtual domain2, and then you only advertise users1-150 as being on domain1 and users151-300 as being on domain2, then the requirement to send to different domains for a range of users is already supported. See the Pseudonyms section of the manual.

yes mary, this is exactly what i want to do... technically, i will setup 2 sme mail server, SME1 (domain.com) which will act as email receptionist it will catch all the emails for my company. then if SME1 found that the user has an alias, then it will forward the email to my SME2 (sub.domain.com). in this way, both server will not be overloaded. user at SME1 will download email at SME1 & users at SME2 will download email at SME2.

On the other side, the email address of all my user will be same eg. @domain.com.

[paradigm]

yes mary, this is exactly what i want to do... technically, i will setup 2 sme mail server, SME1 (domain.com) which will act as email receptionist it will catch all the emails for my company. then if SME1 found that the user has an alias, then it will forward the email to my SME2 (sub.domain.com). in this way, both server will not be overloaded. user at SME1 will download email at SME1 & users at SME2 will download email at SME2.

On the other side, the email address of all my user will be same eg. @domain.com.

This will maybe split the load between two mail servers , they both will be working all most the same like 1 mail

server , and if the first one dies you will have no way to receive  mail !

Same for sending mail , which server will serve as an smtp server ?  , you cant use two in same time ...

And if the server which has the role of smtp dies you will not be able to send mail...

What will you do with webmail ?

[elg3ne]

yes paradigm you are correct, it maybe split the load between the 2 SME & that is my goal..
yes again if the 1st SME dies, there is no way to receive email. but it is also the same thing if i use only 1 server. the purpose of 2 SME mail server is just to lessen the load of the 1st SME mail server.

i think sending email is not a problem because either of the 2 SME can send email. both can serve as smtp server, its just a matter of configuration on the mail client... in any case, a newly setup SME can send email right?

on regards to webmail, i have a little knowledge with php so i'm planning to write a php script that will read user on a db when the user enter his/her email & pass...
then the script will check whether the user is from domain.com or sub.domain.com
if validated, the script will forward the user either to the 2nd SME or 1st SME.
i think it is doable.

[janet]

elg3ne

There are two methods being referred to here. One is to forwrd email on a per user basis either via the User panel in server manager or by configuring aliases.

The other is to delegate email for a second domain to another mail server.

Which method you use will depend on what compromises you can accept eg mainly that all users will have the same email domain name or a altenative email domain name ie domain1 or domain2. There is obviously more or less complexity with each method.

Personally I don't see why you just don't run a single mail server. Email is typically an erratic process and not everyone is accessing it at the same time. qmail will queue message delivery and you can easily adjust the number of instances to control mail flow in qmail and qpsmtpd to prevent mail from overloading your server. End users usually do not notice these control limits.

It really does depend on usage frequency and volume and whether your users make a lot of use of webmail (ie server based email application). You have not told us any "load figures" as yet that would allow this to be assessed.

[paradigm]

I agree with mary , just use one mail server for mail , it should handle the load ...

yes again if the 1st SME dies, there is no way to receive email. but it is also the same thing if i use only 1 server. the purpose of 2 SME mail server is just to lessen the load of the 1st SME mail server.

Yes but using one mail server and one affa backup server for it is a lot better the splitting the mail to two servers.

i think sending email is not a problem because either of the 2 SME can send email. both can serve as smtp server, its just a matter of configuration on the mail client... in any case, a newly setup SME can send email right?

That is not a vary good idea port forwarding wise , and off course having to change the smtp server setting

In 300 mail clients isn't vary fun either.

Here again 1 mail server and 1 Affa backup server for it will be a lot better ,

Lets say your mail server dies you just rise the Affa backup mail server and give it the same ip of the old

Mail server and your done , no configuring 300 mail clients , no two domains forwarding , and great redundancy

[janet]

paradigm

...you just rise the Affa backup mail server and give it the same ip of the old Mail server ....

IIRC the rise will give all production configuration settings to the backup server, no manual setup of IP reqd ie after the signal-event post-upgrade and reboot.