Email system.

[Michael Hipp]

Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-10-15 at 17:53 -0500, Michael Hipp wrote:
>> Ben Duncan wrote:
>>> Integrate with Microsoft Active Directory for user accounts;
>> I think this one item will greatly limit the range of solutions that can be 
>> proposed.
> 
> Not at all. If you based it on openSUSE, joining an AD is as simple as
> can be (a nice GUI handles all the details). Then, authentication can be
> either linux, or the AD. An AD user who logs in to the linux box need
> not have a prior account. It will be made on the fly. And, accessing SMB
> shares made available by the linux box and validating against the AD
> simply works. The only requirement in setting it up (on openSUSE) are:

Yes. But I don't think they're talking about any linux clients. Appears all 
the talk is about Outlook and such. Sounds like a Windows shop.

Did a bit of googling and didn't realize before that dovecot (for example) can 
readily authenticate against AD. So that should help. But getting the level of 
integration they're expecting may not be easy (e.g. automatically setting up 
email boxes on the linux server).

If this is a Windows shop as I imagine, most of them can't even /imagine/ 
using anything else. I would guess they have designed this RFP to ensure some 
Exchange-based solution will win. I worked in state government for a while and 
know that game. So sneaking in an OSS solution will take some work.

Thanks,
Michael