Zimbra Questions For a New User

[Dan Nelson]

I installed the latest Zimbra on CentOS 5.2 in a virtual machine today. I am trying it out to see if it will work as my home email solution. From what I can see it rocks and if I can get past a few issues I'll be using it. Then if I can only get it into work...

I've browsed the forums and wiki's for hours tonight and still have two questions.

1. I have multiple email accounts spread over 3 different isp's. I want to set up external imap for each account, and ensure that replies to those emails use the proper smtp host to send the email, not the zimbra smtp. Is this possible? I only see options for one isp smart host.

2. I have a dynamic ip and since I really only want to use Zimbra for everything but email, I am wondering if I need the mx records set up properly since I will only be using external accounts for email.

If I like the way Zimbra works I'll eventually move my personal domain's over to zimbra, but I'll still have two domains that I want to group together into my zimbra interface.

[dgoradia]

im no expert on zimbra.

but im guessing it should be fine on a dynamic ip if ur not goin to use the mail feature. Im sorry but i dont know about the smtp settings for external accounts.

you probably have to change some postfix settings.

Regards

[newmember]

Dan,

You are talking about a 'relay' when you want zimbra to send email to another smtp server on the way out. That is set under your 'Global Settings' and 'MTA' tab. You can only set one 'Relay' Server in the GUI for all domains on your zimbra server.

Next issue, most servers these days, mine does, 'black list' email servers on dynamic IP address. Typically smtp servers on a dynamic IP address could be a spammer. Check your IP address and see if its on the 'black' list. The Spamhaus Project - PBL - The Policy Block List Lookup an IP Address in the Spamhaus DNSBLs

Next thing to watch, some ISPs are intercepting smtp from residential users to help prevent spam. You can test if your ISP is intercepting your smtp traffic by telneting to one of your email accounts smtp server like this: telnet mail.domain.com 25. Use port 25 and use the domain or IP address of your email accounts smtp. If the name of your ISP shows up they are intercepting, if the name of your email server shows up you are good for now.


Question, what would the benefit be by gathering all your email from other email servers onto zimbra first before your email client?

[Dan Nelson]

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your help.

I checked my ip up and it was not listed in the db although I understand it could be in the future. Since I live and work in Croatia email will be more likely to be listed as spam anyway. I was assuming that if I use Zimbra and use my us isp as the sender that mail would show as having come from my us isp. Perhaps that is wrong...

The benefit of having all email in one account is that it is easy to review in one location. Also, I have work and home email blended together with multiple computers plus Linux and Windows. I need shared contacts, calenders and tasks and using the zimbra web client would solve that issue entirely.

I am guessing I could set up forwarding from my isp account to my home account and receive that email, however, the need to reply to home email with my home address and work email with my work address seems touchy.

Is there an alternate path to what I need using Zimbra?

Thanks.

[Dan Nelson]

Wow - I just checked out the desktop client and it is excellent. It is almost perfect for what I am hoping to do. However, it appears that the address book, calendar, etc... are not global. In other words, I would need to create a separate address book for each account. This is restrictive in another way. But the ability to specify the sending options unique account are exactly what I want to do.

Will the desktop client support using the contacts from Zimbra in any account created in the desktop client? If so, Zimbra has solved 100% of my problems. If not, then I have to keep duplicates of my contacts in each account and that is a drag.