[wellylug] Migrating Windows 2003/Exchange 2003 To Linux

David Harrison david.harrison at stress-free.co.nz
Tue Jul 18 10:51:23 NZST 2006


On 17/07/2006, at 2:42 PM, Geraint Jones wrote:

> Users still need to use outlook with all the fancy calendering and  
> stuff - so i need something that will integrate fully with outlook

Have a look at Zimbra (mentioned earlier) and Scalix (http:// 
www.scalix.com/).
I am running Zimbra at the moment and it is stable and relatively  
easy to setup (but a little slow).
However to gain access to the Outlook (and iSync) connectors you must  
purchase either their Standard or Small Business versions:
http://www.zimbra.com/products/pricing.html

I haven't fully tested Scalix but I looked at it before going with  
Zimbra. Their open source version gives you access to their Outlook  
connectors for free but overall the system is a lot more difficult to  
install and maintain.

Most of these packaged email servers assume you will be running a  
standalone server and make a lot of undocumented system wide changes.
Consequently running Zimbra/Scalix on the same system as a Samba/LDAP/ 
print server can be very problematic.

I got around this problem on my system by running Xen virtualisation  
(the Zimbra server exists in its own virtual machine).
There's no noticeable speed difference but it just meant I could let  
Zimbra do as many changes as it wanted without having to worry about  
how it would effect the rest of my services.
I've written about Zimbra/Xen here (in my case running OpenSUSE 10):
http://www.stress-free.co.nz/content/view/240/2/
http://www.stress-free.co.nz/content/view/241/2/

I think your biggest challenge in all this is going to be mail and  
calendar migration but I might be wrong there having never tried.


> Users have roaming profiles - these MUST work

Samba3 supports roaming profiles and it works fine.
I've got it setup in a number of offices and its a lot more reliable  
than native Windows roaming profiles (if you call Windows roaming  
profiles stable).
Later versions of Samba3 also offer network recycling bin support  
(kind of like Novell Salvage) which can be a lifesaver for those  
accidentally deleted files:
http://www.stress-free.co.nz/content/view/258/2/

> Printing - how does this work ??? can i still publish printers to  
> AD ??

Printing these days is handled by CUPS usually in partnership with  
Samba.
Samba/CUPS work pretty much out of the box together, the only real  
challenge is determining the best way to set your printers up.

> Active Directory - Can samba act as an AD PDC ?

Samba4 can act as a PDC but its only for testing and it lacks most of  
the functionality required for a true PDC replacement.
Don't expect a true Samba PDC replacement anytime soon I'm afraid.

> any insights are more than welcome - i will need to start this soon  
> as we are in violation of our m$ licencing and it will cost us  
> about $20k to rectify the issue - $20k i am very reluctant to spend  
> if i can help it

OpenSUSE = free
Xen = free
Samba = free
CUPS = free
Zimbra = US$28 per user per year

You are however going to need to spend more time in the setup but as  
you say you've got $19,999 to play with....


David





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