Topic: Best way to collect email from multiple pop boxes.

[david000]

Hi all,

I'm hoping to use SME Server to replace our current windows based 'local' email server.

So far so good except that I've realised that out of the box SME does not appear to collect email from multiple pop accounts.

I see from searching that there may be a couple of solutions to this but I wondered if anyone can recommend a straight forward way of enabling this.

Presumably 'Fetchmail' could be the answer but on one hand it appears to need to be installed when on the other hand it's part of the system ?

All help appreciated.

Thanks

David

[Stefano]

hi, welcome here..

please read here: http://wiki.contribs.org/Fetchmail

HTH

[david000]

Cheers, I'll read that again.

++++++++++++

That's installed pretty easily. Easier once I realised that you needed to login as root to get to the command line.

For newbies like myself, Fetchmail is disabled by default.

The one odd thing I am seeing is that the mail collection schedule will not save to "every 5 minutes" in the email settings, always reverting back to "Every 15 minutes" which is confirmed by the logs ? (OK have just seen the note on this at http://schirrms.net/sme/SMEFetchMail.php )

[janet]

david000

Using fetchmail is prone to be problematic. Search forums for examples of this.

You would be better off setting up automatic forwarding of those external accounts to equivalent email addresses at your sme server domain. Then users retrieve messages directly from your sme server.

Most external accounts allow you to automatically forward messages and delete the copy on the providors server.

Avoid fetchmail as much as possible, & if you must use it, just configure it to collect the minimum number of accounts, ie those for which you have no other option eg forwarding.

[hawk]

i agree with janet, i use both methods for email.

one way to have your emails forwarded to your SME server you change the MX records

hope this helps

[david000]

Thank you both.

One of the problems(?) I have is that the SME server is in my office and we have a dynamic IP which makes your suggestion problematic ?   

I guess I could forward mail to a 'catch all' pop account on one of the external mail servers and collect it from there, although I'm not sure that this is possible for some of the web mail services we use.

The background to this is that we are a small business and we service mail from several our domains \ businesses. To do this staff use a shared mail account so that no email is missed if someone is off.  We currently collect mail from the many and varied pop boxes we have and handle the mail on a 'local' office mail 'groupware' server where it's sent to a single account to be manually processed or other accounts for automatic processing.

 

[p-jones]

Using fetchmail is prone to be problematic. Search forums for examples of this.

I have been using the Fetchmail contrib for a long time and havent found it to be problematic. Although it offers a five minute polling time, I have found 15 minute polling time better. Have experienced a couple of minor niggles when a polling cycle wants to start before a previous cycle has finished (hence the 15 minute poll) but I certainly would not classify it as being problematic.

A decent internet connection helps a lot too.

That contrib will also distribute the mail to multile mailboxes.

I also pull mail from a catch-all mailbox and let SME distribute it. (concurrently with Fetchamil contrib) That works just fine too.

My experince has been excellent and it certainly has not caused me to loose any hair.

david000, the things you dont mention are the volumes of mail and the type of mail. ie a couple of lines of plain text or a small/medium/large attachment etc. One or both of these things could be a real game - changer.

P

[david000]

david000, the things you dont mention are the volumes of mail and the type of mail. ie a couple of lines of plain text or a small/medium/large attachment etc. One or both of these things could be a real game - changer.

P

Good point. Spam aside we don't get massive volumes of mail(?) although we can get chunky attachments - say up to 5mb.   We're on a cable connection, which gives us about 2.5mb downstream to cover mail and whatever else is going on. I may upgrade to fibre in the near future.

[david000]

Any suggestions on how to route mail to SME users from different email addresses and domains ? 

I've tried a few things without success and mail collected from a catch all a/c defined in the email setting gets delivered to the admin a/c.   Google has not been my friend.

I did write a full post covering them but the captcha thing lost the post (twice)   

[engdev]

I too have used Fetchmail for many years and have found it to be reliable. It sounds ideal for your requirement.

John