[SOLVED] Install zimbra on a public Domain name

[harry_bk]

Hi everybody,
I'm doing an internship in small size company.In our network we are behind a router provided by our ISP for our internet connection.
I successfully installed ZCS 6.0 opensource on my Ubuntu 8.04LTS Server(this Ubuntu is installed on VMware).I'm able to send and receive internal mails, and I even succeeded in sending a mail to my yahoo! account(although it appeared as a spam).
But the problem now is,what can I do to send and receive external mails, I meant from the internet?? I also want users to log from anywhere not only from their office. I've come up with the idea of buying a public domain name(as my company wants to have an internet website), with a public IP address, but I read on the forums that zimbra works when set with local parameters. So what can I do to fix all the above mentioned problems considering all the parameters??

Thank you in advance for all your answers and advice.

[uxbod]

Welcome to the forums

All you would need to do is pass ports from the perimeter (internet router) to your Zimbra server. To reduce the security risk you would only need to open 25 (smtp) and 443 (http/s). If you are going to get a domain name have you thought about how you would rename your Zimbra installation ?

[harry_bk]

Thanks for your answer,
But if I do as you asked me, will it be possible then to send and receive mails from the internet?
And now if the users of my company want to access the server in order to read their mails from their home for example what solution can I provide? could it be a good idea to get a public static IP address? How could I link all these (public domain name, static IP address) to Zimbra so that it could work as I am expecting?
It's a little bit fuzzy in my head now with these parameters.

[uxbod]

If you are already connected to the Internet then don't you have a IP ? Or is your Internet connection via DHCP ? Dependent on the size of the business you could ask your ISP whether you could have a static IP range.

[harry_bk]

My internet Connection is a ADSL, and we are behind a router which provide addresses via a DHCP. My Company has about 30 people and is still growing.
Once I get static IP address, how could I set it on zimbra?(considering that I already set a local DNS server with a static local IP).

[uxbod]

That is fine as all you need to do once you have a static IP address is pass the above ports through to the Zimbra server via NAT. From a external DNS perspective you will need to ensure that you have a valid MX record for your domain, A record point to your Zimbra server and a valid rDNS PTR record.

[harry_bk]

ok I got it for the IP address, but for the DNS where should the configurations (the valid MX record for my domain and the A record to point my zimbra server )be done? I don't think they could be done on my local dns since it is not public.

[uxbod]

Would need to be done by whoever is hosting your external DNS for the domain.

[harry_bk]

Thanks a lot uxbod, I'll ask my boss to buy a static IP address and a domain name so that I could try what you advised me. I'll let you know about the evolution of the project and possible issues I might encounter. Thanks a lot for your advice.