xserver

[rmvg]

Hello everyone i have been a FreeBSD user for many years now and cannot believe how relieable the little devil has been for me. I have also been using Zimbra for some time now and am upset the there will probably not be a port for Freebsd anytime soon.

Not to be discouraged I am thinking of switching to the MAC Xserver platform as it is FreeBSD. However i am going to be using it in a distant server room and will have mostly remote access to it. Therefore I will not need all the file and print sharing or local type stuff.

Guess what i am asking here is the MAC Xserver worth it or should i go with something else like an intel or a ibm and throw debian or fedora on it? I have no experiance with the MAC nor does anyone I know just fishing for some good feedback here.

ps The MAC seems to good to be true

thanks in advance

[marcmac]

Running a mailserver on an OS you don't know anything about sounds like a recipe for disaster.

[phoenix]

Why not install it on a known working platform such as RHEL4 or the free CentOS4? They're reliable and you'd have a stable and well supported platform.

[rmvg]

hmmmmmmmmmmm not at all what i expected for replies! Guess i am looking for something a little more together hardware/software. Have been quite frustrated with PC's and am not very happy with fedora core 3 but i guess it is old now.

For the most part i have been quite happy with FreeBSD but it sometimes becomes a beast.....................lets face it folks i am at a point where i think this industry is not worth it anymore. I have been at it along time and am proud of what i a have accomplished over the years but when i think about the amount of time..........................well i dont really like to think about it.

I am ready to try something new and think that MAC might be it?? mostly i am looking for the magic fix and was hoping MAC is to an OS solution what Zimbra has been to an Email solution.

ps is mac really that much differant it is freebsd under the hood

[phoenix]

Well, I'm not qualified to comment on the MAC as I've never used one. It depends what you're really asking. If this is a test machine with no real business use then I'd say put anything you like in there, if on the other hand it's for real users that will rely on it then......... I think you can imagine what I'll say next.

I suppose I'm really asking, why are you doing it and what's the reason for changing to an unknown (to you) platform for a mail server?

[dijichi2]

Not to be discouraged I am thinking of switching to the MAC Xserver platform as it is FreeBSD. However i am going to be using it in a distant server room and will have mostly remote access to it. Therefore I will not need all the file and print sharing or local type stuff.

sorry to disappoint you but OSX is *FAR* from freebsd it ripped elements of it for its middle layer, but the kernel is a mach based microkernel, the top end is proprietry postscript iirc, and they've bastardised all sorts of things like the filesystem layout. the file and print sharing stuff last time i tried it (which was a few years ago, it was just too frightening to ever look at again) was a mess. the base OS is pretty stable and it seems to have some fans in zimbra though

if you're looking for a remote server platform, personally I would say you're far better off with an enterprise linux box. if you want something stable and long term the fedora and opensuse releases get eol'd too quickly, i have three boxes running zimbra on debian and got so sick of the mess that is debian that i'm changing them all to rhel4. looks like rhel4 is also the main dev/testing platform for zimbra and has the largest customer base, it's also the most stable linux platform at the moment.

[Klug]

Originally Posted by rmvg

ps is mac really that much differant it is freebsd under the hood

Yes it is.

Even if OSX was based on parts of FreeBSD 3.x codebase (+ mach microkernel), it's quite far from it now (as dijichi2 said). The Java stuff with FreeBSD being a "problem" by itself 8)

I'm a big FreeBSD fan/user (for all my hosting business) but I must admit I'm using either CentOS (for OSS) or RHEL (for NE as CentOS is not supported) to host my Zimbra servers.

As the server is dedicated to Zimbra anyway, managing it is a breeze (the work is just to upgrade the OS when needed, it's just one command line) once you've set it up (very easy too)...

I'd love to get Zimbra supported on FreeBSD but honestly, using CentOS for it is not a problem at all, furthermore it's (RHEL at least) quite the reference platform for Zimbra.

[rmvg]

Thanks for the input folks looks like the mac may not be the magic pill i am looking for. I do not see a Zimbra release for CentOS but can just use the redhat one instead right? seems like CentOS might be the way to go as the bleeding edge fedora stuff scares me as i have been FreeBSD stable guy for about 8 Years now. How about hardware then looking for some decent rackmount stuff as i have access to a server room on the fiber backbone in trade for some work i have done. Nothing to expensive but something that works well with Zimbra and CentOS used (ebay) or new would be fine since i will be throwing CentOS on it anyway.

[marcmac]

I don't understand why people who are concerned about stability run their mail servers on an unsupported OS (I'm talking about CentOS here).

The conversation that baffles me always goes like this:

Them: "Email is very important! Mission Critical! Synergy"

Me: Redhat, support, license, happiness

Them: I'm not paying $XXX.yy to license that OS, when I can get CentOS for free - it's the same OS, without the RH support cost!

Me: Important? Mission Critical? Synergy?

Them: but I save $500!

[Klug]

Marc 8))))

My OSS (french tongue) demo server runs on CentOS.

My NE customers/hosting won't ever run on anything else than RH (unless I find a Xserve in front of my house on day 8)).

So rmvg, to clear things up, if you want to go "support way", go Network Edition + Red Hat...