How to get 10.3 Server to serve up 10 email acconts?

[Rom]

I've been trying to figure this out from reading things on the web, but so far no luck in finiding a simple guide..

I'm at a 10 person office with localized email. We're using POP accounts on each machine, so backing up is ok via retrospect, but not elegant. Our Xserve (10.3.9) runs lightly doing only file sharing via one user name that has access to 5 share points. No email goes through it or any other service.

What I'd like to do is have the Xserve store all email accounts and have the local machines access it. Can this be done just via the email programs or does it require a more complex account setup? I'm trying to go for the minimalist solution; i.e. I know our Xserve is underutilized but I like the fact that the server took 5 minutes to setup and all it has is three drives with data on it...
Thanks for any help,
Roman

 

[Kees Buijs]

I've been trying to figure this out from reading things on the web, but so far no luck in finiding a simple guide..

I'm at a 10 person office with localized email. We're using POP accounts on each machine, so backing up is ok via retrospect, but not elegant. Our Xserve (10.3.9) runs lightly doing only file sharing via one user name that has access to 5 share points. No email goes through it or any other service.

What I'd like to do is have the Xserve store all email accounts and have the local machines access it. Can this be done just via the email programs or does it require a more complex account setup? I'm trying to go for the minimalist solution; i.e. I know our Xserve is underutilized but I like the fact that the server took 5 minutes to setup and all it has is three drives with data on it...
Thanks for any help,
Roman

The best way to do this, is using IMAP in stead of POP3. In that occasion the mail is left on the server and can be access from any system without losing track of any email (you can even use webmail - part of OS-X server) to view your mail in a browser (and if configured correctly, even from the internet). So your colleges can than check their mail at home.

When done with the mail, i put it in the trash (and configure the sytem so it will not empty the trash, leaving me with all mails ever send to me.

I hope you have a large harddisk, because it will require a lot of diskspace after some time.

Backing up the mails is also easy, i use the script included below. (just copy it and paste it in the terminal - if the terminal is not logged in as root, than enter your password en paste again. This script also backups up the mailman stuff.

Change the name of the mailserver partition to you local situation (1st drive = Mailserver KBCS (root), 2nd drive = Mailserver KBCS (data))

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su root

mkdir "/volumes/MailServer KBCS (data)/Mail-Stuff/MailServer-Backups"
cd "/volumes/MailServer KBCS (data)/Mail-Stuff/MailServer-Backups"

rm mailman.*
tar zcf mailman.lists.tar.gz "/volumes/MailServer KBCS (root)/var/mailman/lists/"
tar zcf mailman.archives.tar.gz "/volumes/MailServer KBCS (root)/var/mailman/archives/"

rm squirrelmail.*
tar zcf squirrelmail.tar.gz "/volumes/MailServer KBCS (root)/usr/share/squirrelmail/config"

rm spool.*
tar zcf email.tar.gz "/volumes/MailServer KBCS (root)/var/spool/imap/"

ls -l *

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Good luck, Kees