Ms Exchange vs dovecot

[Marc Roos]

How did you decide for the Baikal? I have been testing a long time ago 
with this apple ccs calendarserver, but it did/does not feel right. I 
think there were tasks also in this one, but I am not sure anymore. I 
had argument with the developers that they should not enforce openssl 
building, they did not get that they are developers and not sysadmins 
and should just do development. Their approach made it cumbersome to 
update the ccs server, exactly the opposite of their goal. I even saw 
some issues recently that meeting invitation requests were not 
compatible. Which is an issue with lots of caldav implementations. I 
have everything in ldap, so that support is necessary. 

I don't think people use that many exchange features, like with office 
80%-90% can just do fine with libre/open office. Granting someone access 
to folders is mostly it I guess. Ccs was supporting this also if I 
remember correctly. 


 

-----Original Message-----
From: (Michael Hirmke) [mailto:mh at mike.franken.de] 
Sent: 09 May 2020 13:36
To: dovecot at dovecot.org
Subject: Re: Ms Exchange vs dovecot

Hi Marc,

>I have recently been working/testing with exchange 2016 and started 
>thinking if I should even migrate to this platform. I assume more 
>people here have experience with exchange and this idea.

I was an Exchange admin for years and even had an Exchange server at 
home for about 20 years - just for fun and for testing purposes.
Three months ago I migrated to dovecot and baikal - and dropped Exchange 
completely.
This worked flawless, so *I* don't miss Exchange at all.

But:

You can't compare dovecot with Exchange, because dovecot is a mail 
server, Exchange is a groupware server. This is why I added a baikal 
server to my infrastructure. Baikal is a Cal- and CardDAV server, that 
can replace the calendar und contact parts of Exchange.
Nevertheless you loose many features of an Exchange server after 
migrating to such a setup, so if your users got used to these feature, 
it wouldn't be possible to drop Exchange. It is only feasable for small 
environments with few people or in a new environment, where nobody has 
used an Exchange Server until now. IMHO.
This was not your question, it is meant as background information, if 
you wouldn't already know that.

For your environment I can't tell if it is possible to migrate to 
Exchange, because you didn't write, if you already have an Active 
Directory in place, which is necessary for Exchange on premise.
If you want to use Microsoft's Azure AD and the Exchange cloud services 
on top, you have to migrate your users to Azure AD. In any case you need 
an Active Directory for Exchange server.

>I was wondering if this is possible with a dovecot setup

> 1. public folder can be implemented with a public mailbox?

Yes, but public folders in Exchange are dying for years.
They still exist, but are only supported so so.
Public mailboxes in dovecot are supported full fledged.

> 2. authorize users via groups access to mailboxes/folders of the 
>public folder/mailbox. I think I saw ACL's with dovecot, does this 
>compare to 'folder permissions'

Not really, but I'm not an expert for permissions on public mailboxes.

> 3. is it possible with sieve to apply a rule on any mailbox/folder?
>Thus if I 'drag' a message to a folder, the sieve rule is activated?

You can configure a folder to act on incoming mail in the folder 
properties. I never tested, though, if "incoming" also applies when 
copying to a folder.

Bye.
Michael.
--
Michael Hirmke