This article deals with the Scalix Administration Console (SAC). This web interface is the central point of administration for the Scalix server. User, group, and resource management are done here as well as controlling services and settings. In this article by Markus Feilner, we will take a short tour through the interface, add a first user, and have a closer look at the configuration options available for him/her. Towards the end, we will test the account by logging into the web client, and sending (and receiving) emails.

SAC at a Glance

Point your Browser to the URL of your Scalix server, following this syntax: http:///sac. A pop-up window with the Administration Console Login is opened. If you are using Firefox or another browser with pop-up suppression, perhaps the configuration will need some corrections. Allow the Scalix server to open popups. In Firefox, you can easily configure this by clicking in the yellow bar on top of the displayed page. Other browsers may require editing the preferences. Otherwise, Scalix will provide a web page for you with a link, which opens the Admin Console in the same browser window.

Logging In

On Scalix 11, the Scalix Administration Login looks like this:

Enter the Administrator's name in the field Login ID, exactly as configured during installation. Activate the reminder that you are connected via http and not through https by clicking on option field Not using a secure https connection. Once we have configured https for Scalix, the login dialog will not provide this option anymore. However, enabling https is not that easy, and therefore not standard in Scalix, except for the installations on Red Hat Enterprise. Click on the button Login to start the Administration console.

A First Look Around

The Scalix Administration Console is a Web application provided by a Tomcat application server. The only requirement for it is a modern browser supporting JavaScript. Firefox and Internet Explorer do fine, Konqueror may work soon. The Admin Console window is split in three parts:

• A menu with icons called Toolbar
• A list view on the lower left named Contents Pane and
• The main window on the right, called Display Pane

The icons in the menu bar let you choose the administration task you want to accomplish, the content pane lists the possible entries that can be edited, and the options and parameters of a selected entry are presented in the display pane.

By clicking on one of the icons on the Toolbar, you can access the different sections of the Scalix Administration Console. The first three sections are about users, groups, and resources, and will be used in daily administration for adding, deleting or modifying these objects. The section Plugins offers a management GUI for your own or third-party Scalix plug-ins. The Server Info icon leads to a concise list of running services, where the administrator can set the log level of these services and browse through the services' log files. The Settings Icon allows you to set preferences for the server and new users. A concise online help is available, and the icons Refresh and Logout complete the menu bar's icons.

Navigating in the Admin Console

A nice gadget in SAC is the little icon on the top left of the main window. Surrounded by four arrows, this icon displays the icon of the current section and enables the administrator to navigate in a quick and easy manner through the administration console.

Clicking the up or down arrows will select and activate the next entry upwards or downwards in the list view to the left, and the left/right arrows navigate you back and forth in a browser-like fashion.

Users, Groups, Resources...

Now click on the Users icon in order to switch to the user management dialog. Click on the entry of the only user present at this time, sxadmin.

For every user, there are six tabs where the user information is stored. The tab General holds the most important information: Username, Display Name, and Email address. This information is all that is necessary to add an user and use the new account. The other tabs contain contact information, group memberships, and administrative delegations. The mailbox quota, that is the amount of storage that the user's account may sum up to, is configured in the Mail dialog. On the Advanced tab, the administrator can add a role to the user, decide whether this user is a Standard or a Premium User, and give him a different authentication ID.

Changing Passwords

There are other features in the Admin Console that you will be using frequently once you are master of some Scalix users. One of them is probably the button Change Password on the lower right corner leading directly to the password dialog. This button is present in every user's configuration dialog.