Cyrus Imap server Questions

[Nic Bernstein]

If you need to do archival, I recommend that instead of using Sendmail, 
you look into using Postfix.  It has an option "always_bcc" which can be 
used to send a copy of each message, internal as well as incoming and 
outgoing, to a particular mailbox.  You can then either have that 
mailbox put into a separate partition.  Or, if you need to be able to 
support legal discovery, such as for Sarbane Oxley compliance, you 
should look into using a database backed archival solution, such as with 
the catchmail.py script or dbmail.

As for the Outlook performance issues, do your users have Outlook 
configured for "offline" mode support?  If so, that may be the cause of 
the problems.  Unless these users are using portable computers there is 
no real need for this mode to be employed.

As far as you hardware choices, they seem reasonable.  I have systems 
with hundreds of users working off of SATA arrays quite happily, though 
for a modern system I would use SAS. 

You didn't mention which operating system you are using.  If you haven't 
yet chosen, I would recommend looking into one which supports ZFS, which 
would mean Solaris, OpenSolaris, NexentaOS or FreeBSD, for example.  We 
have a server with 1500 users on similar hardware to your spec, running 
on FreeBSD with the mailstore in a ZFS volume with RAIDz2 and are quite 
happy with the performance.  With ZFS RAIDz options you do not really 
need the RAID controller, and all the problems that go along with them. 

If you are more comfortable with Linux, which does not have ZFS support, 
then I recommend NexentaOS, which is the OpenSolaris kernel and core 
with the Ubuntu userland bolted on.  You get the best of both worlds 
that way.

Cheers,
    -nic

On 08/16/2009 06:02 PM, John Duthie wrote:
> I am currently proving a Cyrus Imap / E-Groupware server will work at
> my company.
> (replacing FT gate, Competing against Exchange).
>
> We are almost at the stage where we will be getting hardware.
>
> I need advice on some points.
>
> Hardware.
> archival.
> ms outlook IMAP support Issues.
>
> The Site:
> ~50 Users , all accessing email all day (heavy usage can be assumed).
> IT Company/ Call center.
>
> Hardware:
>
> Single server
> Dual Xeon 2 core , 8 GB ram
> looking at a Intel SAS 256 MB RAID card
> with 2 Arrays
> 300 GB SAS - OS / and email
> and 1 TB SATA -  Archival
>
> would using SATA for the /var/spool/imap folder limit performance much
> vs using SAS drives ?
>
> would raid5 using 3 or 4 1 TB drives be better than the sas raid 1 ?
>
>
> My test server.  is a Dualcore E5200  @ 2.50GHz wwith 2GB ram and a
> 160 SATA drive.
>
> I get delays accessing my email in Outlook (1.5 Gb of email) , I
> suspect this delay is Outlook
> Outlook is unresponsive for 2-3 minutes at startup (when syncing)
>
> I also get a Message now and then  about my connection being closed
>
> All of the users currently use Outlook.
> Outlook Auto Archive does not seem to work with IMAP
>
> I am 99% sure this is outlook is the problem, are there workarounds available ?
> (fairly sure I can convert a lot of people to Thunderbird etc , But
> the Managers like their Outlook!)
>
>
> Is there a way to Archive Older Messages on the server ?
> maybe ipurge not purging but moving emails ?
>
> ( we need to keep every email Archived for Legal reasons etc. )
> (still don't know how to get Sendmail to archive all outgoing messages
> yet either)
>
> also:
> The RHEL5.3  cyrus rc script  runs a database backup on shutdown and a
> restore on bootup - This is a bit dumb, when the backup progess
> crashed due to a misconfigeration (test server) and the server was
> Power reset.  it the restored a broken backup and I lost the mailbox
> database ..  - Not your fault but something to watch out for.
>
>
> If anyone out there has set-up a similar system and hit a Stumbling
> block Please let me know !!
>
> also if anyone needs a pam config for imap to authenticate against a
> egroupware mysql database I have it working.
>
> TIA
>
> John.
> ----
> Cyrus Home Page: http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/
> Cyrus Wiki/FAQ: http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/twiki
> List Archives/Info: http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/mailing-list.html
>   


-- 
Nic Bernstein                             nic at onlight.com
Onlight llc.                              www.onlight.com
219 N. Milwaukee St., Ste. 2A	          v. 414.272.4477
Milwaukee, Wisconsin  53202		  f. 414.290.0335