Topic: Upgrading to 8.0

[vladd]

Hi,

For a few good years I've been running my home mail server on SME 7.x and I'm looking towards a total upgrade (both hardware and software).

I have a few questions related to features available in SME 8.0 (or contribs available for it) ... I tried for a few hours to find clear answers myself, without too much success and I hope the experts in this forum can help me.

1. Does it come with proper SSD (TRIM) support?  My current guess is no ...
2. Does it support mdraid version 1.x (Intel RST style)? My current guess is no ...
3. If it is used as a SMTP proxy, can it be configured with multiple identities towards my ISP (at least one per local user)? I have no idea ... for 7.x I understood it couldn't be done, but maybe I was wrong ...

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Vlad

[janet]

vladd

For hardware support of SME8.0, see CentOS 5.8 specifications, upon which base OS the SME server is built.

The SSD support question was answered recently so search the forums, try on SSD.
If I recall correctly, the answer was no, you really need to be using CentOS 6.x, although there was some limited support in CentOS 5.x for some SSD's.

Re the SMTP question, SME8 performs similarly to SME7.6.
If I interpret your question correctly, SME server only supports one main domain and that is what external servers see when communicating with SME server.
It should not be a problem for most situations, even if users send email with a reply address of one of the virtual domains hosted on SME.

What problem do you have for which SME does not work as required ?

[vladd]

Thanks for the quick reply.

1,2: Yes, CentOS 5.8 has the answer. Sorry, I must have been too tired - I'll dig from here.

3. It's not a "seen from outside" issue. My family members have individual email accounts with my ISP and with gmail. I would like to configure all their email identities (all are using Thunderbird or SME's webmail) to use the SME server as a SMTP proxy, but the server's configuration allows only one set of credentials for delivering the messages to the ISP's SMTP server (which is the method recommended for residential Internet service).

Assuming I have used for this purpose user1's credentials (user1@myISP.com, password), both messages sent by user2@myISP.com and user3@gmail.com will have to be relayed through the user1's ISP account. My ISP has a limited ability to configure a user to accept "send as" another user, and surely not for users of other email providers (i.e. gmail).

To be able to use my SME server as a full SMTP proxy, I would at least need the SMTP delivery credentials to be independently configurable for each user. My current understanding is that in SME 7.x there is no way to do that. Am I wrong?

[janet]

vladd

Again if I understand your requirement correctly, then you disable the smtp proxy on sme server & each email client can then talk directly with their specific ISP's smtp server.

Alternatively configure your email clients to send via your SME servers smtp server, and receive directly from their respective ISP's. You may need to configure a user on the sme server that matches the account name and password, I'd have to check what I've done in the past.

[vladd]

mary

The first alternative is what I'm currently using.

For the second alternative, mail receiving is not an issue, as I am using fetchmail to gather all the emails. The smtp is the problem as I can't configure multiple sets of smtp "upload" credentials. It would be nice if I could have them.

[_alex]

Just use the credentials of one of the users for outgoing mail. I don't think your ISP is checking the username You provide match what is in "MAIL FROM", nor that it will rewrite your users messages headers.

[vladd]

Just use the credentials of one of the users for outgoing mail. I don't think your ISP is checking the username You provide match what is in "MAIL FROM", nor that it will rewrite your users messages headers.

Actually it does (Rogers, in Canada) ... that's why I wanted "multiple identities". If any one knows any reasonable means to achieve that I would appreciate some pointers.

As far as I could find out, squirrelmail would able to do that, so would postfix, but neither show up as SME contribs and I don't think I understand the whole email processing chain well enough to be sure that either actually "contain" the solution (or use some other piece of software to achieve it).

[_alex]

I can feel your pain.
Unfortunately, there is no such a functionality in qmail. There is a patch called moresmtproutes that allow You to specify a relay host on a per user basis, but AFAIK, smtp auth is not implemented.

[vladd]

I am a software guy but I did my best to stay away from "Linux internals" ... as this issue bugs me from time to time and winter is around the corner (so I may find some spare time), I would appreciate if someone could point me to some documentation describing the whole mail processing chain, as assembled in SME.

Is this something I could find in CentOS 5.8 as well?

[janet]

vladd

The first alternative is what I'm currently using.

If it works what more are you trying to achieve by changing to another method ?
(other than saying I'd like to do it).

For more technical info refer to the Developers Manual
http://wiki.contribs.org/SME_Server:Documentation

[vladd]

For more technical info refer to the Developers Manual

I have read it a few years back to understand how to properly implement a few tweaks and I have browsed it recently, but I haven't seen the kind of email toolchain description I was looking for - I'll look more in detail.

If it works what more are you trying to achieve by changing to another method ?

Well, it is a matter of control and organizational "pleasure" (I can use "works" but I prefer "works well" much better), but not only that. After years of email and family evolution I ended having to manage some 30+ external email accounts for 6 people. Each time I have to configure a new email client or a new computer and I have to add all those mail identity details on the "outgoing mail" side I wonder why I'm not able to "just" configure them on my server, as I'm doing on the "incoming mail" side. Now I'm looking towards another software and hardware overhaul and I know I'll have to deal with this again ... I was hoping that 8.0 has actually solved it.

[janet]

vladd

Yeah not well covered in the guide. Search forums or google on qmail & qpsmtpd

[janet]

vladd

I wonder why you keep using external accounts & fetchmail (in the way you do).
You could have more fully used your sme mail server component and all users simply use IMAP to access the sme mail server, for sending & receiving.
You can even use user1@your-sme-domain style addresses if you want, or in addition to, the external addresses.

Externally you can forward all the mailboxes to a corresponding address on the sme server. Most providers now have a forwarding component in their setup, and then do away with the need for using the "problematic" fetchmail.

Users can still keep their external email address for return mail, but they collect and send from/via sme.

[vladd]

mary,

I have a residential ISP account, so I don't have a static IP. Therefore, I can't properly host my own domain.

My SME server is "LAN only" (my firewall is handled by a customized little router) and I have been using fetchmail for many years almost without a glitch. All my external emails are forwarded towards only two mailboxes (one with my ISP, one with gmail) from where I pop them down with fetchmail and re-dispatch them to local users with a bunch of mail filters. The local mail access is IMAP (either with email clients or with the web interface), so this SME server handles nicely all email related stuff other than SMTP. I plan to enhance it with SOGo or Zarafa, for some badly needed groupware features.

BTW, this SME email server runs in a VMware VM, inside another SME server handling SMB, DNS and other LAN stuff. This way, if I have any hardware issues, I can easily relocate it to any other PC (Linux or Windows). Now, because of lack of support for modern hardware features, I'll have to rebuild the host with some other (more recent) Linux ... it's a pitty, as I love the way SME is organized and managed.

[Stefano]

Now, because of lack of support for modern hardware features, I'll have to rebuild the host with some other (more recent) Linux ... it's a pitty, as I love the way SME is organized and managed.

SME8 comes from CentOS5.X.. AFAIK Centos 5.8 is not obsolete..
if you want to be sure your HW is fully supported, buy certified hw.. HP/IBM and so on..

all IMVHO

[vladd]

Stefano

AFAIK Centos 5.8 is not obsolete

Of course it isn't, generally speaking. I was merely referring to points 1 and 2 of my original post and, unfortunately, for me it is obsolete (for installing it on bare modern, fast, low-medium cost hardware). However, SME is still my best choice for installation in a narrow purpose VM (i.e. for email handling).

Actually I wonder why the SME distribution doesn't also come in the shape of a few narrow purpose, ready configured VMware virtual appliances ... I think it may gather more audience if people that don't know too much about Linux (still plenty of them) would get an easy chance to see how easy it is to configure and use.

[janet]

vladd

Actually I wonder why the SME distribution doesn't also come in the shape of a few narrow purpose, ready configured VMware virtual appliances ...

There is no shortage of ideas, but there is a shortage of active & skilled developers to implement these ideas.
How about creating the VM images yourself & then request access so you can upload these to the sme mirror system.

You can also put suggestions into the bug tracker as a NFR (New Feature Request), & see what the response is.

[vladd]

mary,

In a few weeks I'll set up my new mail server with SME 8.0 and probably SOGo. Once the VM is OK I'll let you guys know. As for NFR, it seems my use case is such a narrow niche that I wouldn't bug your developers with it, unless I can do some progress myself first.

Thanks for the active support.