Replacing WINDOWS and NOVELL service with CYRUS

[Nikola Milutinovic]

David West wrote:
 > Dear Sirs,

 > Finally you must forgive me asking questions the answers to which are hidden
 > throughout your site; I am the man responsible for paying the bills and am the
 > least technically competent among us all.

 > Our questions therefore are as follows:

 > a. How does CYRUS collect our incoming email from our Internet Service
 > Provider (ISP)? (POP3?)

It doesn't. Cyrus is basically a MBS (Mail Box Server) and it stores mail 
messages, it doesn't fetch them. Cyrus is usually fed the messages by some other 
program, usually an MTA (Mail Transfer Agent), like Sendmail, PostFix, Exim, 
QMail. It can also be fed by some processing program, most commonly ProcMail. 
Lastly, it can be fed by a program that fetches mails from some other MBS, like 
FetchMail.

So, in your case FetchMail could fetch mails from your ISP POP3 and feed it to 
your local Sendmail, which would decide on how to deliver it to your intranet 
mail system - feeding it to Cyrus.

 > b. How does CYRUS send email via our ISP to the outside world? (SMTP?)

It doesn't. SMTP is handled by MTAs exclusively. See Sendmail, QMail, PostFix 
and Exim.

 > c. Can we use email addresses that include "." such as david.west at osmis.com
 > <mailto:david.west at osmis.com>, d.f.west at osmis.com <mailto:d.f.west at osmis.com>?

Of course. One word of warning, though. IMAP4 (which Cyrus is) threats "." as 
folder hierarchy separator, thus mailbox names cannot contain ".". The way we do 
it (like most other people) is that we have two layers of mail addresses: 
public/intranet address and mailbox address. Our Sendmail uses Virtual Users 
Table to translate from public to mailbox addresses. In my case 
"Nikola.Milutinovic at ev.co.yu" translates to "nikola at Mercury.ev.co.yu", where 
"Mercury.ev.co.yu" is our Cyrus 2.1 server (also equiped with Sendmail of it's own).

 > d. Does CYRUS store the messages in individual mailboxes for each "client"?

Well, the answer to this is "it can be so, but doesn't have to be". Normal modus 
operandi is to create a separate mailbox under "user." hierarchy for each user. 
Mine is "user.nikola". When Cyrus accepts a mail message for a user named "joe" 
it will looko for a mailfolder "user.joe" and put the message there. Of course, 
there is nothing stopping me from creating a sort of "group mailbox" - 
"user.joe" and have users "joshua", "jim" and "jane" reading mail from it - 
providing they can authenticate themselves and ACLs for "user.joe" allows them 
to access it.

 > e. Can we use Outlook Express and/or Outlook 2000 as a client to CYRUS?

Outlook Express workes like a charm. Outlook 2k is more a client for Exchange, 
than a real mail client. I've also used Opera 7.10 and Netscape 4.7/6.0/7.02 as 
IMAP4 clients to Cyrus.

 > f. If I normally use an office on the 4th floor but temporarily uses an 
office on the 1st floor will I be able to access my messages?

On IMAP4 yes. On POP3 you should be carefull about which client will download 
the messages and which one will not. I'd go for IMAP4.

 > h. What are the licensing issues regarding CYRUS under the following
 > circumstance:
 > h.1 Internal use only?

Free.

 > h.2 Distribution to academic sites
 > h.3 Distribution to commercial users

I don't think you can charge them for the code, but you might charge them a fee 
for the setup service.

 > i. What are the ongoing support cost for CYRUS under the following
 > circumstances:
 > i.1 Internal use only?
 > i.2 Distribution to academic sites
 > i.3 Distribution to commercial users

For you none, since there is no commercial support defined by the Cyrus team. 
You, on the other hand, may charge for Cyrus support that you provide.

Nix.