Autoresponders automatically generate replies to received messages; they are commonly used to notify others that the recipient is out of the office. Mercifully, Fedora does not include one, but you can find and install an autoresponder at Freshmeat.net. If you subscribe to a mailing list, be aware that automatic responses from your account can be very annoying to others on the list. Please unsubscribe from mail lists before you leave the office with your autoresponder activated.
Alternatives to Microsoft Exchange Server
One of the last areas in which a Microsoft product has yet to be usurped by open source software is a replacement for MS Exchange Server. Many businesses use MS Outlook and MS Exchange Server to access email and to provide calendaring, notes, file sharing, and other collaborative functions. General industry complaints about Exchange Server center around scalability, administration (backup and restore in particular), and licensing fees.
A drop-in alternative needs to have compatibility with MS Outlook because it's intended to replace Exchange Server in an environment in which there are Microsoft desktops in existence using Outlook. A work-alike alternative provides similar features to Exchange Server, but does not offer compatibility with the MS Outlook client itself; this incompatibility with Outlook is typical of many of the open source alternatives.
Several drop-in alternatives exist, none of which is fully open source because some type of proprietary connector is needed to provide the services to MS Outlook clients (or provide Exchange services to the Linux Evolution client). For Outlook compatibility, the key seems to be the realization of a full, open implementation of MAPI, Microsoft's Messaging Application Program Interface. That goal is going to be difficult to achieve because MAPI is a poorly documented Microsoft protocol. For Linux-only solutions, the missing ingredient for many alternatives is a useable group calendaring/scheduling system similar in function to that provided by Exchange Server/Outlook.
Of course, independent applications for these functions abound in the open source world, but one characteristic of groupware is its central administration; another is that all components can share information.
The following sections examine several of the available servers, beginning with MS Exchange Server itself and moving toward those applications that have increasing incompatibility with it. None of these servers are provided with Fedora.
Microsoft Exchange Server/Outlook Client
Exchange Server and Outlook seem to be the industry benchmark because of their wide spread deployment. They offer a proprietary server providing email, contacts, scheduling, public folders, task lists, journaling, and notes using MS Outlook as the client and MAPI as the API. If you consider what MS Exchange offers as the full set of features, no other replacement offers 100% of the features exactly as provided by MS Exchange Server — even those considered drop-in replacements. The home page for the Microsoft Exchange Server is http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/.
CommuniGate Pro
CommuniGate Pro is a proprietary, drop-in alternative to MS Exchange Server, providing, email, webmail, LDAP directories, a web server, file server, contacts, calendaring (third-party), and a list server. The CommuniGate Pro MAPI Connector provides access to the server from MS Outlook and other MAPI-enabled clients. The home page for this server is http://www.stalker.com/.
Oracle Collaboration Suite
Oracle Collaboration Suite, or OCS as it is known, is a proprietary application that supports deployment on Linux. It provides a number of services, including email (both POP and IMAP based), file sharing, calendaring, and instant messaging to name but a few. You can find it at http://www.oracle.com/collabsuite/.
Open Xchange
The Open Xchange message server is based on Cyrus-imap and Postfix. Most of the server's groupware features are provided by a proprietary web-based groupware server (ComFire). Open Xchange also uses Apache, OpenLDAP, and Samba to provide public directories, notes, webmail, scheduler, tasks, project management, document management, forums, and bookmarks. Some compatibility with MS Outlook is provided. The home page is http://www.open-xchange.org/.
You will use the following commands to manage electronic mail in Fedora:
► balsa — A GNOME mail user agent for X
► biff — A console-based mail notification utility
► evolution — A comprehensive and capable Ximian GNOME mail PIM for X
► fetchmail — A console-based and daemon-mode mail retrieval command for Linux
► fetchmailconf — A graphical Fetchmail configuration client for X
► kmail — A graphical mail user client for KDE and X
► korn — A biff applet for KDE and X
► mail — A console-based mail user agent
► mutt — A console-based mail user agent
► sendmail — A comprehensive mail transport agent for UNIX and Linux
► xbiff — A mail notification X client
Reference
The following references are recommended reading for email configuration. Of course, not all references apply to you. Select the ones that apply to the email server that you are using.
Web Resources
► http://www.sendmail.org/ — This is the Sendmail home page. Here you can find configuration information and FAQs regarding the Sendmail MTA.
► http://www.postfix.org/ — This is the Postfix home page. If you are using the Postfix MTA, documentation and sample configurations can be found at this site.
► http://www.qmail.org/ — This is the home page for the Qmail MTA. It contains documentation and links to other resources on Qmail.
► http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue35/jao.html — IMAP on Linux: A Practical Guide. The Internet Mail Access Protocol allows a user to access his email stored on a remote server rather than a local disk.
► http://www.imap.org/about/whatisIMAP.html — A page describing what IMAP is.
► http://www.rfc-editor.org/ — A repository of RFCs that define the technical "rules" of modern computer usage.
► http://www.procmail.org/ — The Procmail home page.
► http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/html_single/Qmail-VMailMgr-Courier-imap-HOWTO.html — If you want some help configuring a mail system based on the lesser-used applications, this HOWTO can help.
Books
► Sendmail, from O'Reilly Publishing. This is the de facto standard guide for everything Sendmail. It is loaded with more than 1,000 pages, which gives you an idea of how complicated Sendmail really is.