Scalix: Linux Administrator's Guide

Markus Feilner

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Overview

Table of Contents

The Author

Reviews

Downloads

Install, upgrade, and configure Scalix
Build a robust and reliable system
Detailed walkthroughs and expert advice on best practices

Book Details

Language : English
Paperback : 276 pages [ 235mm x 191mm ]
Release Date : April 2008
ISBN : 1847192769
ISBN 13 : 978-1-847192-76-9
Author(s) : Markus Feilner
Topics and Technologies : All Books, Linux Servers, Open Source

Preface
Chapter 1: Email and Groupware: History and Basics
Chapter 2: Scalix Groupware
Chapter 3: Installing Scalix
Chapter 4: Advanced Installations
Chapter 5: First Steps with Scalix Admin Console and Scalix Web Access
Chapter 6: Administration and Configuration
Chapter 7: Common Options and Documentation
Chapter 8: Monitoring Scalix
Chapter 9: Scalix and Security
Chapter 10: Backup and Restore
Chapter 11: Scalix Directory Integration
Chapter 12: HA and Multi-Server Setups
Chapter 13: Defeating Spam and Viruses
Bibliography
Index

Preface

Chapter 1: Email and Groupware: History and Basics
- A Brief History of Email
  - The 1960s—CTSS and MIT
  - The '70s—From MULTICS to RFC Standards
    - The Story of @
    - RFCs—Request for Comments
  - Mailing Lists, Sendmail, X.400, BBS, and More
    - The '90s: Groupware, the WWW, and Microsoft
- How does Email Work?
  - Sending Mail—the User View
  - The Protocols Involved
  - SMTP
  - POP
  - IMAP
  - MAPI—IMAP, the Microsoft Way
  - MIME
  - Headers—What Does an Email Look Like?

Storing the Groupware Data
- Directory Services—DAP and LDAP
- VCAL, ICAL, GroupDAV, CalDAV, WebDAV, ...
  - Groupware Definitions

Summary

Chapter 2: Scalix Groupware
- The History of Scalix: Why HP Won the "Bury The Gold" Award
  - Abandoning OpenMail
- Scalix at First Glance—SAC and SWA
  - Scalix Web Access—the Web Client
- Scalix Architecture and Protocols
  - Protocols
  - User Types
  - Mailnodes
  - Services
  - Daemons
  - Queues
  - The Message Store
- Scalix Versions and Packages
  - Licenses
  - Platforms and Hardware Requisites
  - Packages
  - Add-Ons
- Getting Help
  - The Scalix Website
  - Manual Pages
  - Online Help
- Summary

Chapter 3: Installing Scalix
- Installing Scalix on OpenSUSE
  - Download Community Edition from the Scalix Website
  - Checking and Troubleshooting the System Before Installation
    - DNS Integration
  - Continuing Installation
  - Three Steps for Initial Configuration
  - Setting Up the Server
  - Testing the Installation
- Installing Scalix on Fedora Core
- Summary

Chapter 4: Advanced Installations
- Advice for Installation
- Checklist for Accessing the Graphical Installation
  - Graphical Installation on Windows Using NoMachine
    - Setting Up Your First NoMachine Session
- Text-Based Installation
- Uninstalling, Updating, and Reconfiguring Scalix
  - Uninstalling Scalix
  - Updating and Reconfiguring

Advanced Installations—Multi-Server Setup
- Distributing Scalix Services on Multiple Hosts
- Troubleshooting Installation

Summary

Chapter 5: First Steps with Scalix Admin Console and Scalix Web Access
- SAC at a Glance
  - Logging In
  - A First Look Around
  - Navigating in the Admin Console
- Users, Groups, Resources...
  - Changing Passwords
  - Filtering the List
  - Adding a User
  - Playing with Filters
- Testing the New Account—Logging into SWA
  - Sending the First Email

Summary

Chapter 6: Administration and Configuration
- Deploying Clients
  - Installing Scalix Connect for Outlook
  - Installing Outlook as a Client
    - A New Account
    - Changing an Existing Account
    - Adding an Outlook Profile
    - Setting Up Outlook for the Scalix Server
    - SmartCache
  - Starting Outlook 2000
  - The SmartCache Icon and Context Menu
  - Outlook 2003
  - Installing the Scalix Evolution Connector
  - Kmail/Kontact as IMAP Client
  - Kontact as Groupware Client with a Scalix Server
  - Scalix Email with Thunderbird
- Summary

Chapter 7: Common Options and Documentation
- Global Configuration Files and Directories
  - Scalix—Outlook: mapi.cfg
- Options and Parameters
- General Options
- IMAP and Addressing Options
- Item Structure Server, Local Delivery, and More
- POP, Public Folders, Queue
- Service Router and UAL Client Options
- Virus Protection
- Configuring Scalix Components
- Administration Commands
  - Start/Stop Scalix
  - Status and Other Information
  - User Management
  - Installation and Configuration
  - Tuning
  - Services
- Summary

Chapter 8: Monitoring Scalix
- Standard Monitoring Commands
  - Log Files and Logging
  - Scalix Applications
  - Checking the Limits
    - The Error Manager
  - Monitoring Scalix with Nagios
    - Download and Installation
    - Editing the Nagios Configuration
    - Customizing the Configuration
    - Services and Commands—the Hard Work
    - Contacts and Contact Groups
    - Nagios NRPE
- Summary

Chapter 9: Scalix and Security
- Basic Security and Firewalls
  - Linux Firewall Terminology
  - iptables—the Standard Linux Firewall Tool
  - The SUSEfirewall
- Securing Scalix with OpenVPN
  - Generating Certificates
  - VPN Client Access to the Server
  - Setting Up a Web Proxy
- Stunnel
- Securing Scalix with https Redirection
  - Configuring Apache2 for SSL Redirection

Some More Ideas ...
Summary

Chapter 10: Backup and Restore
- Saving /var/opt/scalix
  - Restoring /var/opt/scalix
- Incremental Backups to a Different Machine
  - Exporting/Importing Single Mailboxes
- Automated Backups to File
  - Importing Data with sxmboximp
- Backup Tools for Large Environments
  - Logical Volume Management (LVM) Snapshots
  - Sxbackup from the Scalix Admin Resource Kit
  - Single Mail Restore with SEP sesam
- Summary

Chapter 11: Scalix Directory Integration
- Integrating with an External LDAP Directory
  - The Scalix LDAP Server
  - Preparing a LDAP Server for Password Management
  - Configuring Scalix for LDAP Authentication
- Active Directory Integration
  - Installing the Active Directory Extensions
  - Create a New Scalix-ADS User
  - The Scalix ADS Extensions
  - The Management Console Extension
- Activating Synchronization Agreements
  - Synchronizing Contacts with Active Directory
- Summary

Chapter 12: HA and Multi-Server Setups
- Multi-Server Setups
- The Common "Simple" Two-Node Cluster
- The "Cheap" Active-Passive Cluster
- Mailrouting in the Enterprise Edition: omaddrt
- Keeping Directories Synchronized
- Summary

Chapter 13: Defeating Spam and Viruses
- Commercial or Open Source?
- Scalix Virus Scanning—How It Works
- Installing Clamav
  - Setting Up Scalix for Virus Control
- Scalix Anti-Spam
- Authentication and Relay Control
- Summary

Bibliography
- Links Used Throughout the Book:
  - Chapter 1
  - Chapter 2
  - Chapter 3
  - Chapter 4
  - Chapter 7:
  - Chapter 8:
  - Chapter 9
  - Chapter 10:
  - Chapter 11:
  - Chapter 12:
- Acronyms Used
- Relevant RFCs

Index

Markus Feilner

Markus Feilner is a Linux professional from Regensburg, Germany, and has been working with open-source software since the mid 1990s. His first contact with UNIX was a SUN cluster and SPARC workstations at Regensburg University (during his studies of geography). Since the year 2000, he has published several documents used in Linux training all over Germany. In 2001, he founded his own Linux consulting and training company, Feilner IT.

He was working as a trainer, consultant, and systems engineer at Millenux, Munich, where he focused on groupware, collaboration, and virtualization with Linux-based systems and networks.

Since 2007, he is an editor at the German Linux-Magazine, where he is writing about Open-Source-Software for both printed and online magazines, including the Linux Technical Review and the Linux Magazine International www.linux-magazine.com. He regularly holds speeches and lectures at conferences in Germany.

He is interested in anything about geography, traveling, photography, philosophy (especially that of open-source software), global politics, soccer and literature, but always has too little time for these hobbies.

Markus Feilner supports Linux4afrika - a project bringing Linux computers into African schools. For more information please visit www.linux4afrika.de!

This book targets Linux administrators that intend to work with Scalix e-mail servers. By skimming through the book you can see that this is a serious and robust technical manual and it is literally jam-packed with knowledge heavily focused on Scalix and Linux.

"Scalix: Linux Administrator's Guide" provides a brief look at the Scalix messaging and calendar server. Although other distros are mentioned, the book is directed toward SUSE Linux. If you have just downloaded your first copy of Scalix, then this book will help you get started with it.

Sample chapters

You can view our sample chapters and prefaces of this title on PacktLib or download sample chapters in PDF format.

Find your book in our support section to find errata and to download code samples.

What you will learn from this book

Dissecting an email message and understanding how email and groupware servers work
Installing Scalix on OpenSuSE 10.2, Fedora Core 5, and Windows
Setting up Scalix in a multiserver environment with clustering and replication
Troubleshooting and hardening your Scalix environment
Working with the Scalix Administration Console (SAC)
Managing users and handling common tasks
Deploying the Scalix connector for Outlook and integrating with IMAP mail clients
Understanding Scalix configuration files and administrative commands
Standard Scalix monitoring tools and status reports
Integrating Scalix in your centralized Nagios monitoring system
Securing your server using firewalls, Stunnel, and OpenVPN
Performing full, incremental, and single-mailbox backups and restores
Integrating an external LDAP directory with Scalix and configuring the Scalix LDAP server
Integrating Scalix Administration tools for Active Directory
HA (high availability) and multi-server setups
Setting up an active/passive cluster with backup functions
Preparing Scalix for spam and virus filtering using smtpd.cfg and Clamav and Spamassasin

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In Detail

High-end email and groupware is a domain where only few vendors can provide solutions. It is where companies like HP, Novell, or Scalix offer reliable and scalable products. And Scalix is the only one that has licensed parts under a free and open-source license (Scalix Public License). Scalix runs on Linux, is free for up to 10 users, offers a lot of possible features, ranging from caldav or syncml to clusters, and supports any client. Its flexible architecture gives you the freedom to choose your hardware platform, desktop client, security, directory, and storage infrastructure.

"With over one million mailboxes deployed, 140,000 Community Edition downloads, 5,500 community forum members and almost 700 corporate customers, the Scalix collaborating platform is the most field-proven Linux e-mail and group calendaring solution available to enterprise." â€”The Scalix website

With the right know-how, Scalix can be managed easily, and several thousand mailboxes are possible on a single server, Web GUIs and command-line tools help the administrator, and Scalix integrates easily with other professional tools, such as OpenVPN, Nagios, and others.

During its history of almost 20 years, many tools and programs have been developed for Scalix to help you with your routine work. While the official documentation has several thousand pages, which are not all up to date, this book gives a detailed overview from installation to advanced setups and best practices for configuration and security. It will help you implement and manage both the free open-source Community Edition and the Enterprise Edition of Scalix.The author provides both a concise description of the features of Scalix and an easy-to-use starting guide for those new to administering it. By bringing together material that might take days to find online this book is a real timesaver.

Install, configure, and administer your Scalix Collaboration Platform email and groupware server.

Approach

This book is a well-illustrated and practical guide to implementing and understanding Scalix. It includes exhaustive references to the relevant online documents and RFCs.

Who this book is for

This book is written for Linux administrators who wish to set up an email server for businesses or who wish to switch to Scalix from another email server. Scalix can be used very easily by beginners; however, advanced strategies and administrative tasks are difficult to learn and this book will help you master them all.