[ale] [meta] List filters

JD jdp at algoloma.com
Mon Nov 4 11:58:34 EST 2013


On 11/04/2013 10:02 AM, Michael Trausch wrote:
> I had looked at Zimbra once upon a time. Seemed... Heavy. Is it worthwhile?
> Anything I can get from it that I can't do with postfix , dovecot and sieve?

Zimbra is HEAVY. If there were another Linux solution with enterprise
calendaring and not butt ugly, I would deploy it.  Zimbra wants 1.5G of RAM + 2
vCPUs for a trivial deployment. It is also stupid-stupid-stupid about /etc/hosts
and DNS requirements that simply ARE NOT required for a working email system.
Even with those things, I love it. We are a few releases behind ... trying to
avoid removed features in the latest versions ... they took out the XMPP server,
for example. VMware decision.  The other things they have removed - lite
document storage - I do not miss.  The lack of a server-side GPG support sucks,
but client-side GPG works as we expect.  Secure email is hard.

Zimbra talks using standards, so if you have standards compliant clients, all
will be good.  Thunderbird + Lightning works.  Creating tag or folder filters
means a web login to the ajax webclient.  I do that about once every 3-6 months.
The rest of the time, K9-mail and Thunderbird work.

If you just want an email + imap server, stay with postfix and dovecot on a 384M
VM.  Wouldnt a few postfix rules work with that?

Zimbra is about centralized, sharable, addressbooks, IM, calendars, email
folders, with delegation, etc. ON-YOUR-HARDWARE. In 6 yrs, we have not lost
anything due to Zimbra issues.  Once, I did something stupid during an upgrade
and lost all the incoming email early on a Saturday morning ... the most current
backup was from 2am.  I think it was just spam that was lost. Ooops. ;) As I
learned more, Zimbra has been rock stable, though the CEO hates email quotas. ;)
 Have not screwed with anything on the server in months .. years , besides
normal patching every week. That server runs Ubuntu 10.04 still - the last of my
10.04 servers.

> Probably goes without saying that I am getting tired of the unreliability of
> Google's apps services. I can't be then only one noticing that they such. I
> have four accounts at different domains and I am seriously unhappy with
> them.

My issue with google is their complete access to not just emails, but any other
data plus tracking from analytics, doubleclick, and probably 50 other things I
do not know about.  Too much data held in 1 place is just ... S.C.A.R.Y.

If you use gmail, think of the privacy invasion your choice forces on everyone
else to email you.

> Anyway, will have to check out Zimbra again.

Zimbra is far from perfect. We were nailed by a leap-second bug in 2012. For
email, pretty much any client works. For Calendaring, mobile clients are ... er
... harder to find.  I do not have one, but a guy on my Zimbra server uses
something paid and he is currently happy. There is always the web client for all
this stuff - 3 different versions
a) mobile
b) pure HTML
c) Ajax - better than Gmail, IMHO. Very slick with lots of javascript addons
(linkedin, facepook, tweater, VoIP, Skype, etc.)

For Outlook users, only the paid version of Zimbra supports the expected MAPI
client crap.

Catch me at any meeting and I can show the Zimbra web versions ..l. though I use
thunderbird + lightning.
http://blog.jdpfu.com/2011/07/22/thunderbird-5-and-lightning-for-enterprise-calendaring-and-email
- also answers what [enterprise calendaring] means.

Many other enterprisey Linux systems connect to Zimbra too.  I use the Zimbra
LDAP as the central authentication server for Alfresco, Redmine, MediaWiki,
vTiger-CRM and a few other things I cant name now. The integration is pretty
easy if the system supports LDAP.  The only system the we do NOT integrate with
it for users is remote access - for obvious reasons.

Sorry for the book. Much of this would be better on a blog ...


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