REAL-WORLD LABS INTRANET In the Shadow of the Heavyweights Communication systems – Popular mail servers on the Windows platform include Microsoft Exchange Server, IBM Domino and Novell GroupWise. However, just because a product is popular doesn’t make it good by any means. Network Computing tested other products to see whether mail servers of the second rank have got the right stuff to take on the heavyweights. xchange Server and IBM Domino are the to the Microsoft and IBM products. The release I-mail is essentially an e-mail server based on Emost frequent answers to the question of of the »IMail« server at the time of the test was standards that supports the SMTP, POP3 and which mail server a company uses on its Wind- 2006; however, Network Computing had the IMAP4 protocols. Users send and receive e- ows platform. Novell’s GroupWise enjoys a cer- opportunity to try out the new 2006.1 release. mails using their preferred mail clients, inclu- tain popularity as well. In the shadow of these The messaging and collaboration products of ding Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express and mighty products, however, there is a whole lot of Ipswitch come in different configurations: Eudora. However, I-mail itself also contains an other mail servers that are quite capable of hand- The IMail Server is a simple e-mail server with adaptable web-messaging interface that sup- ling the e-mail traffic of large companies.Network web mail and list server, while the Secure Edi- ports nine languages, German and English Computing tested four such mail servers. tion of the IMail Server adds a number of se- among them. That means users receive access curity features to that basic functionality and to their mail, contacts and calendars through the Ipswitch IMail Server, the Ipswitch Collaboration Suite rounds off the web from any computer connected to the In- Secure Edition 2006.1 IMail Server with Instant Messaging, shared ternet. In this context, it’s worthwhile mentio- The Ipswitch IMail Server and the Kerio Mail- calendars and contacts. Since our test focused ning that there was no import function to put Server are among the better known products on the mail server functionality, we chose the contacts from another mail client, for example, that enjoy a certain degree of popularity next Secure Edition of the IMail Server. Outlook, into the web-messaging interface. 2 Ausgabe 18 | 8. November 2006 www.networkcomputing.de INTRANET REAL-WORLD LABS functions with blacklists, Bayesian filter and matic import of all users and groups of the AD phrase filter; however, the Secure Edition adds domains and a simplified e-mail user adminis- a language-recognizing, automatically updated tration. anti-spam technology of mail filters. To protect e-mail users from viruses, worms The IMail Server runs under Windows 2000 and Trojans, the KMS relies on the McAfee an- Server or Windows Server 2003 and requires ti-virus – a scanning engine is integrated in the Microsoft IIS 5.0 or higher, Microsoft .Net Fra- product. External anti-virus software can be mework 1.1, Internet Explorer 6 or Windows used as an alternative or in conjunction with Scripting Host 5.1, MDAC 2.6 or higher. The that engine. KMS provides protection from setup of the IMail Server proved easy enough, spam too. Available are blacklists, Caller-ID although, with all the trimmings, it took up qui- checks, Bayesian filter and SPF checks. Admi- te some time. nistrators can also define message controls of their own. The anti-spam functions are more Kerio Technologies Kerio expansive than I-mail, for example, but it’s dif- MailServer 6 ficult to make a direct comparison as conclu- The Kerio MailServer (KMS) was available for sive results necessitate more long-term training testing in Version 6.2.2. This product is a fully of the filters. equipped mail server with many standard KMS runs under Windows 2000 (SP4), GroupWare features. The MailServer supports Windows XP (SP1 or 2) and Windows Server SMTP,POP3, IMAP4 and, with its Outlook con- 2003 (SP1). A 20-user installation is possible nector, access to e-mail via a MAPI interface. using a Pentium II with 500 MHz, 256 Mbyte Foto: NASA Foto: KMS furthermore supports the »WebDAV« in- RAM and 50 Mbyte disc space for installation. terface, which can be used for accessing e-mail Of course, each mailbox requires additional disc accounts as well as for joint editing of files on space. the server. Support of WebDAV in KMS allows Installing the KMS (from a download file links to Microsoft Entourage, an MS-Office- with approx. 47 Mbytes) only took two minu- 2004-for-Mac-e-mail-client. tes. Configuring the numerous functions and KMS has two interfaces for administration: features, on the other hand, proves to be a lot A graphic Windows interface and a web inter- more time-consuming. face. The Windows interface allows access to all Administrators have remote and secure ac- settings, status information and protocols. Alt- Alt-N Technologies MDaemon PRO cess to administrative functions as well. The hough it looks rather plain, it is logically for Windows 9.0 web administrative interface is easy to under- structured and easy to use. Unfortunately, the MDaemon is a mail server loaded with features, stand and easy to use. The administrator uses web interface only allows the administration of which, like KMS, contains some a number of this interface to manage users, authentication, user accounts, user groups and alias names. domains and various services and he or she can Even though one language can be selected for activate monitoring for any important service. installing the KMS, with English and German TEST PROCEDURES The log files are also available in a simple text among them, the web interface only commu- format in the web administrative interface. nicates in English. Ditto for the online help. On Mail Servers The IMail Server authenticates users against the other hand, the web application interface is One after another, all four products were in- an I-mail database and active directory of its fully rounded off, providing access to e-mail, stalled on a machine with Pentium 4 2.67 own or against another ODBC-capable databa- private and public folders, contacts, tasks, no- GHz, 512 Mbytes main memory and 40 Gby- se. Using the I-mail SSL configuration tool, the tes and calendars. Its layout is similar to that of te hard-disk space under Windows Server administrator can activate the I-mail SSL fea- Outlook, allowing most users to quickly fami- 2003 (SP1) for one week each. The Internet ture by installing an SSL certificate. The pro- liarize themselves with it. In addition to the connection was provided by ADSL. The ma- duct contains tools, which effectively thwart complete web interface, KMS also offers a nar- chines exclusively worked as mail servers. dictionary attacks and hammering. rowed-down interface for PDAs and other The following e-mail clients were used for ac- All these functions notwithstanding, the handheld devices. cessing the mail servers: The web client of each product, Outlook Ex- IMail Server doesn’t stand out at this point. Users are authenticated by KMS against its press 6 and Eudora 6. One week of live acti- What really makes this product interesting is the own internal database, against Windows NT do- on with each product gave us ample oppor- add-on components of the Secure Edition.With main accounts or via Kerberos 5 against active tunity to evaluate the mail server functions, the aid of the included Symantec Scan Engine, directories or Apple Open Directory. The me- anti-virus components and content / spam the IMail Server efficiently protects users from thod of authentication can be selected on a user filters of the products, their configuration destructive code, Trojans, worms and other basis. The Active Directory Integration requi- work and their local and remote manage- threats caused by e-mails. The standard IMail res the installation of Kerio Active Directory ment. Server already contains some basic anti-spam Schema extensions. This pays off with an auto- www.networkcomputing.de Ausgabe 18 | 8. November 2006 3 REAL-WORLD LABS INTRANET At first glance, the graphic application interface of Kerios spam filters perform well MDaemon Pro seemed overloaded, but after a short ti- and the clearly structured me spent on getting familiar with it, it proved to be an administration console makes excellent configuration and management instrument. them easy to configure. GroupWare functions. The server naturally administrators a while until they get a grip on tabase and allows close integration in Active Di- supports SMTP, POP3, IMAP4 and LDAP. the vast array of symbols.Alternatively, the pro- rectory. Active Directory users can be imported Users receive access to the GroupWare/Collabo- duct contains a web administration console cal- without any problems. Moreover, MDaemon ration features via a web interface. If the admi- led »WebAdmin«, which, as far as the test show- can be set to monitor changes to the user ac- nistrator installs the Outlook connector add-on, ed, reproduces all the functions of the Wind- counts of an Active Directory domain and to re- that access is also possible via Outlook. ows application. This web interface is clearly act accordingly. Obviously, this makes adminis- The administration console is a graphic structured, visually more appealing than that of tration a lot easier. Windows application, which can be intimida- I-mail and considerably more replenished than The web application interface of MDaemon, ting at first glance. It contains a menu bar, a dou- that of the Kerio MailServer.As a standard,Web- the so-called WorldClient, was the best one of ble symbol bar and several register cards for admin runs on an internal web server of its own, the products tested.