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Mail Server locally to store email fetched from remote server?
pubcrawler
Banned
Anyone doing something like this?
Local mail server ---> Remote mail server
Idea here is any remote POP3 compliant server can receive and store email. Might have limits on storage, might not be greatest for archiving and long term storage (i.e. portability between providers, platforms, etc.)
Local mail server is the dumpster that fetches remote emails and stores them for long term saving, mass collection etc.
End users fetch their email from the local mail server. SMTP processes go through the remote mail server.
Anyone have such a thing working already? What are you using for the local mail server to make such work?
Comments
Somebody on WHT (Cant remember his username for the life of me) offered something similar to this as he offered it to us when we under a lot of DDoS attacks before we used Google Apps, you simply set an MX record and email was backed up there whilst ours was down.
Will look through my PM's to see if i still have his messages.
That would just be a MX backup I believe @GetKVM_Ash.
With what I am proposing, email would always go to live remote server and internal server would on schedule fetch the mail and remove it from remote.
Oh right im with you, no use to you then!
Local mail clients basically do that. Then you can back up their databases. Any reason why a server solution would be preferred over a client?
Fetchmail + any MTA?
Yeah local mail is tied into the client and snafus that happen there. Lack of portability and user muckery.
Concept is long term storage of everything in compliant nature. Actually have some needs where the archiving must/should be done.
Fetchmail looks possibly like a contender. Thanks @nstorm
I remember in past fetchmail was used a lot in *nix environment to deliver mail from remote POP3 servers to a local system. Because local mail clients (MUA) were lacking delivery features (MRA). You know, unix way - one piece of software = one purpose. Seems like this has been forgotten with those clients what does fetch mail by themselves. Every new thing is well forgotten old one. :P
Email_agent_(infrastructure)
True @nstorm. I had something cobbled like this circa 1997. Knowledge long gone.
Archiving email and other communications is becoming more and more necessary for businesses of all sorts.
Me I like be able to know we have mail stuff stored and backed up locally for safe keeping.
Alpine would be good for this. I believe it has all the functionality builtin to be able to do what you require. Or Mutt + fetchmail I'd think would work nicely.
@twain, alpine, there is an old use to use program I haven't heard in eons.
Why do you think Alpine would be good choice for such?
I use fetchmail plus procmail, to sort into folders, for mail accounts I can't forward directly to my home mail server.
For archiving mail on existing mail accounts use imapsync: http://imapsync.lamiral.info/
@pubcrawler I have to be missing something. Is there a reason you won't setup your remote MTA as a smarthost for an internal setup and have say Dovecot offering the access your end users need for mail stored on that internal server? If it is the concept of remote and internal that has you scratching your head combine ^ with an understanding on defining local domains/ local nets through your remote MTA and any *possible NATting you need to do depending on how 'internal' we are talking. I can see why it gets the gears turning. There aren't many HOWTOs on that type of thing, But you can piece it together. I have to be off base here though. The simplified version of this without considering internal to remote communication is what @nstorm and @t3k9 said followed by the degradation to end user that @jarland mentioned. Meh oh well.
impasync looks interesting. although it might not fit exactly right @t3k9.
idea is to fetch all the mail off the remote server. delete the mail from the remote server.
users get their mail from a local server that gets fed the data from the remote via that fetch and delete process.
then ideally, internally we archive full version of everything through the system, probably in addition to their working box.
@pubcrawler said: impasync looks interesting. although it might not fit exactly right
You would use imapsync for the initial sync as that will create the folder structure for IMAP accounts. Not needed for POP accounts.
Instead of fetch and delete why not forward mail from remote to local?
Forwarding would work @t3k9, but not for old mail...
Idea is to capture all emails, but old on the remote server and all new emails. Put them on local server.
Then users connect to the local server to get their email ideally from another instance that is IMAP and trimmed down based on their use, deletions, etc.
But still on the backend we retain all the old emails in another instance.
That make sense and seem viable with this? Little odd concept
@pubcrawler check out this service. http://www.rollernet.us/our-services/mail-services.html
If you want to do the above completely in house I can help with a postfix config
But for old mail you just rsync it in to your local box. You want to simply duplicate your mail directory format. And you want to use same UIDL or a fail safe format. This is more of a move-setup-and config mail server issue. implode() t3k9 and jbxl..
@natestamm I assume the point is that user aren't having access to the remote maildir, so he can't rsync from it. Only access is via POP3/IMAP.
@pubcrawler Fetchmail is the solution for you, I have a couple of clients who used to do this long ago when email boxes were like 100MB only. They setup a local server where the email clients communicate via IMAP, and external mail is downloaded from our servers. Allows them to send large internal emails without needing to burn bandwidth since most of them were on like dialup, and our email servers handled all remote mail.
@nstorm oh nuts that's my fault i thought he had ftp or full access. *And I missed the requisites on what he said below. @Kenshin you mean bandwidth outside your local net for internal mail for local users that can auth against the delivery agent? Darla sending sales an updated product spec sheet @localhost to @localhost? And you're saying that's a fetchmail bonus? That's more of an expected behavior from your MDA.. /runs
Use imapsync for the initial download from remote to local as I mentioned previously. fetchmail won't create the right folders if it's an IMAP box. After that, start forwarding the mail from remote to local or use fetchmail to pull from remote to local. You can then delete the old messages on the remote once you've verified everything is on the local server.
On the local machine, you can set up procmail to move messages to certain folders when they are fetched using fetchmail or received via SMTP if you're forwarding. You can also set up procmail rules to copy messages to a separate archive mailbox or folder(s).