Totally second what Andrew is saying with Office 365. I admit I’m not a huge fan of the web admin interface, but its more clunky with a screen reader than inaccessible with one. And everything you can do with the web UI you can do with Powershell, so there’s a CLI for everything. In fact, I think you can only do some of the more advanced tasks with Powershell. I’m not a huge fan of Onedrive for business, again not so much accessibility (the IOS could use some work) but it just doesn’t seem all that stable to me, but hey. At work we use a provider called Intermedia for our email, and very soon, Skype for Business. I think a mailbox alone with Intermedia is about $15 per person, which is about twice as much as I pay with Office 365, and you have very little control over the environment, all you can do with anti spam, for example, is set whether its on or off, and whitelist addresses and domains. With Intermedia’s Skype for Business you can’t even establish your own federation policies, you have to open support tickets for them to do that for you where with my Office 365 I was able to set up federation like I wanted to really easily. Ryan
On Jul 29, 2015, at 11:08 AM, Andrew Hodgson <andrew@hodgsonfamily.org> wrote:
Hi,
It is worth it trust me. You can control everything yourself, be on the latest Exchange version, as well as have access to Office (if you purchase the right plan) and drive storage space etc. I couldn't live without it now.
Andrew.
-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Barry Toner Sent: 29 July 2015 17:03 To: Blind sysadmins list <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Email Servers
Hi,
I found the plans page for Exchange with Microsoft https://products.office.com/en-gb/exchange/compare-microsoft-exchange-online...
I'm going to look into this. I've been with SMS for years, but if I can get what I have for cheaper with a bit of admin on my behalf it might be worth it.
Barry
-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Hodgson Sent: 29 July 2015 12:12 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Email Servers
Hi,
I have pretty much full control with Office 365, actually. You would be surprised what you get control over from Office 365 - pretty much most of the Exchange features and even most of the SMTP-time features, antispam etc.
Andrew.
________________________________________ From: Blind-sysadmins [blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] on behalf of mattias jonsson [mj@mjw.se] Sent: 29 July 2015 10:36 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Email Servers
Because you have full control with a own mail server
-----Ursprungligt meddelande----- Från: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] För Darragh Ó Héiligh Skickat: den 29 juli 2015 11:34 Till: Blind sysadmins list <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Ämne: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Email Servers
Just to emphasize something that Andrew said:
Why do you need a mail server? There are a lot of free, cheap and professional mail providers out there at the moment.
I hosted my own mail servers for about ten years but I stopped about two years ago because it's a lot more hassle than it's worth.
I've even started moving my customers over to cloud hosted solutions.
I've been bitten a few times by cloud providers of course. I would no longer trust Simply Mail Solutions to hold a stone. Never mind my customers mail boxes for example. I've had good experiences with Google apps but I don't like POP or IMAP. My preferred option funnily enough at the moment is Office 365. There's just no beating it for price, reliability and even accessibility.
I stay away from POP and IMAP in favour of Exchange and active sync. If you can't get mail in real time to a phone at the moment you may forget about it. Customers aren't interested. They don't want pull functionality. They want push. If they can get instant gratification from Facebook they expect it from their mail system as well.
The biggest two draw backs of running your own mail server are:
1. Constant up time is needed. If your MX records are pointing to that server it needs to be up every day all year round. If you have two boxes and their load balanced then fantastic but you have more patching and more maintenance.
2. Anti-Spam. Spam is one of the biggest problems for a mail administrator. White list too much and it becomes unuseful. Don't and people moan because they had to click three times instead of once to release and open a message. Again, this requires patching and maintenance.
I'm still running three on site mail systems at the moment. All three have front end servers thanks to the EFA project. All three are Exchange servers. Correction. I'm running a fourth which is Postfix and Squirrelmail based.
I'm looking forward to their renewal dates because I'll be glad to get rid of them.
I'm tired of tracing through log files looking for a message that someone said hasn't been delivered when I know full well that it's on the recipients side that something has gone wrong.
So keep that in mind. You're not just setting up a mail server. Your taking on the administration of that server, people's mail clients, the anti-spam, anti-virus and message delivery to companies that you have no control over.
It's great fun!
Sorry for the lengthy response.
Darragh
-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Hodgson Sent: 29 July 2015 08:46 To: Blind sysadmins list <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Email Servers
Hi,
There are a few specific paths you could go down. Here are some ideas:
You could go with a more enterprise ready system and just use the free version. Something like Zimbra or the like have free versions which support basic POP3 and IMAP access, as well as a good webmail client. There is an install curve to get through but once you are there it provides a good backend web interface to configure the system. The packages tend to take over the system, so you couldn't use the server for anything else really.
You could just install your own packages from the Linux repository including for example Postfix/Exim, Courier, Squirrelmail, and perhaps a configuration tool like Webmin etc. This will involve initial configuration but will be a good learning experience.
You could use something like ISPConfig, Symbiosis or CPannel on the server to provide the email server functionality
Last but not least there are cheap email providers around that could also do this for you and then you wouldn't have a server to worry about maintaining.
Hope this helps. Andrew. .________________________________________ From: Blind-sysadmins [blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] on behalf of Jad Wauthier [jtwauthier@gmail.com] Sent: 28 July 2015 22:48 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Email Servers
What email server would you install on a Linux system for a client? I'm looking for something that has a nice webmail interface and is easily configured on the back-end. I'm a bit bummed that Google Apps isn't free anymore.
-- Jad Wauthier | Problem Solver Phone: 512.290.3494 Fax: 512.367.5925 It's all in the perception.
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