We have been going round and round about email archiving with Imail and postfix. We started out trying to do archiving with Imail's copyall account and Imail rules, but that wasn't very reliable. So then I started this project to get postfix to AUTH the Imail accounts, which was going swimmingly until we figured out (due to a post on this list) that webmail still wouldn't be archived in this way, nor would anyone not using postfix as their SMTP server (meaning that we would have to have ALL our clients change over instead of just those requesting archiving). Len's DNS layout posted earlier would be great, but unfortunately all our clients are currently set up with the same server for incoming and outgoing. Live and learn. =20
All that led to my supes asking me "Is there a solution that will archive ALL mail for a particular domain, incoming and outgoing, and not make any mistakes?" To which I replied "Yeah, but not with Imail". Very long story short, now I am tasked with a much larger project: replace our Imail server with an open source solution (should have kept my mouth shut). So I'm planning this thing out and I know mostly what software I want to use (postfix, courier, etc), but when it comes to OS, well I'd like some advice. The choice comes down to this: should we pay for a distribution just to get the included support? Or should we stick to FreeBSD, which we are currently using to run our IMGate gateway and has been ROCK SOLID? The yearly cost of, say SUSE Enterprise Server or Red Hat ES isn't a problem, since we will still be saving over Imail and Declude yearly maintenance contracts. It just seems somehow wrong to me to be paying for something we could be getting free. Is the support contract that we would get from either of the two actually worth the cost? If any of you have purchased one of the two and have used the support, how helpful is it? Do any of you have thoughts on this matter that may help us make our decision?
