Webmail Recommendations

[Rommell Barcela]

Hi,

M. Goodell wrote:
> I know this question has been asked several times in various posts,
> however I want to ask it again with requirements specific to our
> needs. I work for a small firm and we are gearing up to host a few
> websites and would like to provide webmail for them.
> 
> There is a huge selection of webmail options to choose from out there
> and I have tried a couple of them only to experience a large degree
> of frustration trying to put all of the pieces together and have them
> work properly.

Since this is what I am currently using, for almost 3yrs now without any 
problems, I guess I'll have to suggest a postfix+amavisd-new 
+spamassassin+clamav+spamd for AV/AS gateway and squirrelmail+vpopmail 
+qmail+qmailadmin+vqadmin+courier-imap for mail storage.

> This is what we would like:
> 
> 1 - Virtual mail accounts so we can have several email accounts
> without requiring a system user account.

vpopmail does this. It also supports a per domain disk and user quota, 
via CLI or vqadmin.

> 2 - Clear / complete documentation - is this asking too much in the
> open source world? It would be nice to have some good well written
> documentation and reference material opposed to having to Google a
> solution to a problem most of the time.

Everything listed above seems to have a detailed documentation.

> 3 - Scalability - We want to have something that will grow with us
> and not have performance suffer as a result of growth.

You can setup your applications on separate boxes.

incoming mail
     |
multiple Postfix+SA+Clamav servers
     |
separate boxes for Apache, your chosen DB, etc. you can also plug in 
perdition

> 4 - Ease of maintenance - would like to be able to add / edit /
> delete / maintain user accounts and the system quickly and easily.

vqadmin manages/creates domains and users, great for your company email 
administrator. qmailadmin lets the client manage his own domain - 
add/delete/etc. users.

> 5 - Installation / configuration - Are there some applications versus
> others where the installation and configuration is better / intuitive
> and user / admin friendly.

This is why I just used a vanilla qmail, and let postfix do all the 
filtering.

Everything is on FreeBSD ports. I've been portupgrade-ing my setup for a 
while now. Never had problems. But be sure to read changelogs before 
doing so.

> I am listening . . .
> 
> Thank you for your time.
> 
> - Michael

Cheers.