Replacing WINDOWS and NOVELL service with CYRUS

[John Alton Tamplin]

David West wrote:

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

It doesn't -- if you have mail sitting in another mail account that you 
want in Cyrus, you will have to use some tool to fetch it from the POP 
account and get it into Cyrus, via IMAP/LMTP/SMTP -- there are various 
tools out there to do this. However, I would expect most academic 
institutions would run their own SMTP server and advertise MX records 
for it rather than having their ISP provide the mail server (if the ISP 
is providing the mail server, you should probably just use that mail 
server rather than setting up Cyrus or any other mail store).

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

Aside from vacation and reject messages from sieve, Cyrus doesn't send 
mail.  Your mail clients will send it to a mail server via SMTP.

> 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>?

Yes.

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

Not sure what you mean by client, but each message is stored in a single 
file in the filesystem with a directory per IMAP folder.  Each folder 
can have access control to allow one or more users access to the folder.

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

Yes on OE (we have hundreds of OE users here), I presume Outlook can as 
well although I understand it is not a terribly good IMAP client.

> 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?

If you configure the mail client for your account, sure.  However, for 
this scenario I would recommend using a web mail client such as 
Squirrelmail or Horde IMP.

> h. What are the licensing issues regarding CYRUS under the following 
> circumstance:
> h.1 Internal use only?
> h.2 Distribution to academic sites
> h.3 Distribution to commercial users

Read the license for details, but basically you can redistribute it 
freely as long as you leave the copyright notice (in binary forms that 
means you put it in the documentation).

> 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

I assume there are places that will support Cyrus for a fee, but in 
general it is volunteer support on a best-effort basis like other open 
source code.  You have the source, so you can always maintain it 
yourself if necessary (and you have the appropriate personnel).

-- 
John A. Tamplin                               Unix System Administrator
Emory University, School of Public Health     +1 404/727-9931