SUMMARY: Cmail vs Unix snmp

From: Tricia Kha (tkha@wsgc.com)
Date: Thu Jun 06 1996 - 16:49:45 CDT


Sorry group, I have to resend my message. I got a lot message saying
that message was uuencode. I really don't know why. I'm using sun
solaris mailtool. Again,I'm very sorry if I bother you. Hope this
time will work

thanks very much

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From sun-managers-relay@ra.mcs.anl.gov Wed Jun 5 11:12 PDT 1996
>Received: from ra.mcs.anl.gov by uu4.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.940727-PSI/PSINet) via SMTP;
        id AA19804 for sozoa; Wed, 5 Jun 96 14:01:48 -0400
Sender: sun-managers-relay@ra.mcs.anl.gov
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 09:40:10 -0700
From: tkha@wsgc.com (Tricia Kha)
Reply-To: tkha@wsgc.com (Tricia Kha)
Followup-To: junk
To: sun-managers@ra.mcs.anl.gov
Subject: SUMMARY: Cmail vs Unix snmp
Content-Type: X-sun-attachment
Content-Length: 65230

Hi sun-ler,

I did post my summary about 1 week ago. But I still get the requests
of my summary. So, I'm reposting it again. Forgiveme, if you already
got the other.

I'd like to take a chance to thanks all of you who responsed to my
message. You're the great help.

Thanks.
Tricia Kha

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From wynn@psa.pencom.com Thu May 23 11:20 PDT 1996

> 1. What is the diff. between CCmail and Unix mail.

        CCmail is a PC product, Unix mail is (of course) a Unix product.

> 2. Which one is cost more in term of # license of 500 PCs.

        I don't have pricing information for CCmail, but Unix mail is
        bundled with the OS, and is therefore free.

        Also, you can get a public-domain (free) copy of a Post Office
        Protocol (POP) server for the Unix machine, which will allow
        the PC users to use any POP client (Eudora, MSExchange, etc) to
        download their mail messages to their PC.

> 3. MINE type (Excel, WORD) - which software (Eudora ?). Suggestion?.

        There is a free version of Eudora available, with some functional
        limitations.

        If you're using Windows 95, it comes with MSExchange.

> 4. Which one will easy for Administrating.

        It depends on your personal background.

        Since I'm a Unix person, naturally I feel that the Unix/POP solution
        is the easier of the two.

> 5. Advantages/Disadvantages of between the two.

        If you choose to use CCmail, you will still need to configure it
        to communicate with the SMTP services in order to send/receive mail
        across the Internet.

        Also, Unix machines can be configured and repaired across the network
        via telnet. PC servers require you to go to the machine to fix any
        problems.
 

----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From Daniel.Blander@ACSacs.com Thu May 23 11:36 PDT 1996

1) Its SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol)

2) SMTP is included in all sun boxes standard.

3) Mail clients exist for free for SMTP (eudora, pine...)

4) Good mail clients exist - Netscape, Eudora Pro, etc...

5) cc:Mail has tighter integration, more sophisticated features
        but requires a gateway (expensive - $3000) and every client
        costs.

6) cc:Mail setup and SMTP mail setup are equally lengthy, but cc:Mail
        has much better tools for setup and managing - sendmail.cf
        which is how you setup SMTP on UNIX is a mystical process
        (I wouldn't even call it a science!)

----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From qwe@ht.eimb.rssi.ru Thu May 23 11:38 PDT 1996

 Tricia Kha,
 I'd ran similiar task to get extra $$ for several 'clients' and used
 following - judge yourself if it is applies to your case :
 Internet link - FreeBSD 2.x Unix (like Sunos 4.1.3) running
                 slip link and sendmail,
 OfficeLAN - Novell 3.12/4.10 with Mercury 3.x on server/
                 Pegasus and/or WinPmail as frontend on DOS/Win boxes
 
> 1. What is the diff. between CCmail and Unix mail.
        -cannot compare - never tried CCmail

> 2. Which one is cost more interm of # license of 500 PCs.
        Unix mail will cost you $0.
        Only your time to configure && debug it. && teach 500 users :-)

> 3. MINE type (Excel, WORD) - which software (Eudora ?). Suggestion?.
        WinPmail and Mercury are great for Novell-based LAN with lots
        of W/DOS machines/users used to Novell technology and Windows.
        WinPmail is great. Though heard that Eudora is nice - never tried.

> 4. Which one will easy for Administrating.
        Thinking about Mercury/WinPmail couple - mostly depends on
        Netware version you run. 4.0.1 is a pain - we have it now.
        3.12/4.10 seems to be beauty - did it at several sites and it
        requires once a month visit to stable site ( slow changes, no
        local admin) just to check logs. 4.0.1 is headache - cumbersome
        administrative interface affects all aspects of user management.

> 5. Advantages/Disavantages of between the two.
        My guess is that teaching users might be biggest pain if you'll
try to push them to Unix. I suspect they'll be a bit unhappy to change
their shoes :-). You'll spend some frustrating time repeating how to send
WinWord docs and like. WinPmail is smart with Windows born data.
 
There are licensing/personal problems due to which I'd appreciate that this
mail is not cited/not included into summary.
My boss also is subscriber to the list.

With best regards

----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From mglass@adb.com Thu May 23 11:51 PDT 1996

The new Eudora is way cool but works only on MAC's and PC's.
Z-Mail is also preety cool AND it runs on UNIX, MAC's, PC's and a bunch
of other platforms. http://www.ncd.com is the URL. You can download a
free version for a limited trial offer.
I would go for the Eudora solution and put a POP3 server on a unix box
somewhere only because I have had a few problems using the Z-Mail from
NCD. They have a strange way of handling attachments while EUDORA does
a great job with them.

My two cents.

Michael

----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From rackow@mcs.anl.gov Thu May 23 11:59 PDT 1996

Stay away from CCmail if you can. We have it installed here in a few
places and it's really no fun. The CCmail users like it alot, but those
of us not using CCmail hate it. I think you be better off setting up a
Sun server for email and having your PC people use Eudora. Most of our
CCmail lovers, once shown Eudora switch as quickly as they possibly can.

-_gene

----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From jboerne@uswest.com Thu May 23 12:01 PDT 1996

AVOID anything that is propriatary!!!! I have seen people go down the
road of CCMail and MSMAIL so many times only to be STUCK with a VERY
expensive cludge. I vote for something that simply uses SMTP (Simple Mail
Transport Protocal) what your UNIX machines use and maybe pop3 or impad to
bring the mail down to the desktop machines. All mail vendors (including
MS & CC Mail) offer a propritary to SMTP gateway but it is VERY expensive
and non-standard. Not to mention the fact that you must pay a license fee
for everything.

To re-cap: use your UNIX boxes to transfer mail vie. SMTP. Use Eudora or
Pine or Netscape to give your users PC's access to the unix boxes.

Once mail is up and running, it seems to run forever.

A good imapd can be found at ftp.cac.washington.edu (including
pine).
A good pop3d can be found at ftp.qualcomm.com (including eudora).

Above all..... I would AVOID ANY vendor who will not play the standards
game. They will pick your pockets clean.

Good Luck...

----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From afinkel@pfn.com Thu May 23 12:12 PDT 1996
X-Sender: afinkel@sunrah.pfn.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 15:02:36 -0400
To: tkha@wsgc.com (Tricia Kha)
From: Alex Finkel <afinkel@pfn.com>
Subject: Re: CCmail vs Unix snmp

If your users are going to need to send mail to the internet, then you will
need to add an SMTP<->CCMail gateway and that can cost serveral thousand
dollars just for the software.

I have used CCMail in the past and found it a pain to administer. CCMail
stores all mail for each "postoffice" in a single database which is one or
two files on the novell server. You have to kick everyone off the server
once a month and run a reclaim procedure to clean up the mail file. With
500 users, your mail file would be several hundred megabytes and reclaims
would run for several hours.

The nice thing about CCMail is that you get a common address book and group
"bulletin boards".

One option you might look into is Software.Com's Post.Office product. It is
a POP3/SMTP mail server for UNIX or NT. I haven't tried it, but I believe
it only costs about $500 for unlimited users and you administer it through
e-mail forms or WWW forms. I think the best feature is that users do not
need a Unix login account to have a mail account, the accounts are separate.
I'm considering this product myself, but I haven't tried it yet.

Make sure you have plenty of diskspace to support 500 users, whichever
system you use.

----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From john@oncology.uthscsa.edu Thu May 23 12:14 PDT 1996
Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 14:01:26 -0500 (CDT)
From: John Justin Hough <john@oncology.uthscsa.edu>
To: tkha@wsgc.com
Subject: Re: CCmail vs Unix snmp
Cc: paul@oncology.uthscsa.edu

Tricia,

 1. CC:mail requires a pc gateway to smtp and a pc for the mail server,
     plus you will still have to have a smart forwarder (sendmail)
     which implies more points of failure. Through MX entries in DNS
     tables, with properly configured sendmail and mirring/clustering
     the Unix side can be redundant and fault tolerant. I don't know
     if you can do that with CC:mail. On the Unix side I would run
     the latest version of POP and IMAP. Imap is much better and
     cooler than POP.

 2. Depends - the Unix side and public domain software it could be
     free (Pegasus/Eudora Lite/wpine - Pine for Windows). Or you
     could get up to about eighty dollars a seat with Zmail (much
     better product than Eudora but more expensive too). Sun has
     a product comming soon that uses that IMAP4 protocol. Its pretty
     cool and you can download the short-time-to-live demo versions,
     but I don't have any idea about the cost.

 3. As a policy don't ship native MicroSoft format - they are all
     incompatible. Have users save the files in a portable format -
     like rtf for Word and Sylk for Excel, these could be mailed as
     is without regard to MimeType.

 4. Coming from the Unix side, I think that Unix is inherently more
     stable, robust and flexible than Novell or NT. Creating five
     hundred mailboxes is a easy as adding entries in the password
     table like this:

user:x:511:200:Mail User:/var/tmp:/bin/false

     You have to make entries for them in shadow, and you can write
     a quicky expect script to give them all passwords. The /var/tmp
     and /bin/false is so they don't have a home and they can't login.
     If you had a list of users (first name & last) in a file you write
     a little nawk or perl script to append them to the password table:

nawk 'BEGIN {start=500};{printf "%s:x:%d:200:%s %s:/var/tmp:/bin/false",
        substr($2,7)substr($3,1),start++,$1,$2}' < userlist

     the username is the first seven letter of the last name a first
     initial. You could store this in an associative array and check
     to see if it is already and then do something else:

nawk 'BEGIN {start=500};{a = substr($2,7)substr($3,1); unames[a]+=1
        if (unames[a] > 1) {
           printf "%s:x:%d:200:%s %s:/var/tmp:/bin/false", a,start++,$1,$2
        }else{
           printf "%s:x:%d:200:%s %s:/var/tmp:/bin/false", a unames[a],
                start++,$1,$2
        }'

    Anyway from what I have seen, I doubt you can manipulate things a
    readily on a Novell or NT server. The front end tools may be easier
    to use but they are more combersome too.

 5. CC:mail relies on PC operating systems - a bad thing, and on PC
    hardware also a bad thing.

john

----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From stevee@sbei.com Thu May 23 13:55 PDT 1996
Date: Thu, 23 May 96 13:45:22 PDT
From: stevee@sbei.com (Steve Ehrhardt)
To: tkha@wsgc.com
Subject: Re: CCmail vs Unix snmp

Tricia,

Background:

We use CC:mail, SMTP (Pegasus, Sun, Eudora and other flavors) and Notes
mail. CC:mail and Pegasus are dominant here.

Please DON'T use CC:mail! (We call it "CC:fail" around here.)

CC:mail uses a shared database file with multiple clients accessing it via
file-sharing protocols that are not part of CC:mail. Problems
include:

        1) All clients for a given mail server must run a common
           file-sharing protocol (NFS, Novell, etc.)
        2) Shared database file requires periodic maintenance, which
           may in turn require that email access be turned off from
           time to time. (Rather frequently, in my experience.)
        3) In order to facilitate (1) and (2), multiple mail servers
           will likely become necessary.
        4) All xfers of email between servers and between CC:mail and
           the outside world require gateways (usually standalone PCs).
           These cost additional (hardware and software), and are an
           additional point of failure.
        5) Access via modem for remote users is unacceptably slow, unless
           you run a special remote version that requires it's own server,
           and can't be run along with remote network access.

In general, CC:mail has been a pain to administer, and no where near
as reliable/robust as I'd like. (Lotus claims to have made improvements
in their latest release, but I'm still leary of it. Most of the problems
relate to the basic layout of the software, and that *hasn't* changed.)

I'd suggest Pegasus mail for Windows for the PC's, preferably in POP3
mode (would require TCP/IP on each PC client to do this). If not
that, you can use the Mercury server on your Novell systems and set up
a gateway for SMTP mail. This is *freeware*, and I like it better than
most commercial mailers, including CC:Mail.

If you're looking for a commercial package that can probably run on
any of your platforms, look into NCD software's "Z-mail" package.
It's a very nice package, but a bit pricey.

I realise that I haven't answered all of your questions, but I hope that
this helpful.

Steve Ehrhardt stevee@sbei.com
SBE Inc. (510)355-7773
San Ramon,CA
"The opinions expressed are those of the author. His employer would disavow
        any knowlege of them, presuming they knew that he had any."

----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From patrick@cnu.edu Thu May 23 16:47 PDT 1996

> 1. What is the diff. between CCmail and Unix mail.

Unix mail is included with your UNIX system. CCMail is a commercial
product of Lotus (or IBM now I guess). UNIX Mail is based on open
standards, CCMail is based on proprietary standards that don't work very
well in an Internet environment -- i.e. you need a gateway, and I don't
know o fone that works very well.

> 2. Which one is cost more interm of # license of 500 PCs.

UNIX mail can range anywhere from free on up to ~$25K, depending on the
features you want. CC-Mail is about $50K (All figures US dollars).

> 3. MINE type (Excel, WORD) - which software (Eudora ?). Suggestion?.

Eudora is fine if you realize its limitations. Specifically, it will not
work well if you:
        a) Have more than one user accessing email from the same machine
        b) Have users who access their mail from multiple machines.
This is because Eudora uses the POP protocol, which moves mail from the
server to the local PC. IMHO, you are generally better off with IMAP, a
newer protocol which is true "client-server" in the sense that all data
remains on the UNIX servers. Currently, there is only one PC freeware
program I know of that supports it: PC-Pine. UNIX Pine can work if your
susers telnet in. The problem with Pine is that its text based. I
understand that Netscape mail will support IMAP in Q3.

Over all, I think the best package available is "z-mail", from a company
called "z-soft". Its rather expensive, but runs on Unix, PC's, and Macs,
and handles the problems with POP with a proprietary client server
extension called "z-pop".

> 4. Which one will easy for Administrating.

As much as I hate to say it, probably CC-Mail. But be aware that the
SNMP gatewaying functions SUCK.

> 5. Advantages/Disavantages of between the two.
>

CCMail will probably integrate better with your pc applications. However,
you might consider another product such as "Microsfot exchange server",
which will do that and avoid the kludginess of CCmail's SNMP gateways.

UNIX Mail is probably cheaper, and will definitely fully comply with all
internet standards (CC: Mail doesn't).

I really reccomend that unless you are experienced and comfortable ina
UNIX server environment, you look at one of the rather good email packages
coming out for NT.

Hope this helps.
Patrick
----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From cungo@avatar.pty.com Thu May 23 17:04 PDT 1996

There are few thigs you should consider first. Most of our customers are companies with PC based LANs and MicroSoft Office products (that is mail, schedule, etc.). One of the advantages of this solution is that you can integrate your e-mail with the schedule that comes bundle with MS Office and Windows. With internet e-mail packages like Eudora or Netscape you cannot get this type of functionality (if I am not mistaken). Are you considering the use of MicroSoft Exchange (server and client)? It covers both, the internet and microsoft mail, so you can have access to the Internet through the same MS mail interfase. It handles MIME standard and is very friendly and easy to administer. It also has very neat functions like: notify you when the remote node receives the mail (Internet and LAN mail), access your remote schedule (even through Internet), etc. The only problem I see at this point is that it needs a lot of resources (client needs at leas 16MB of RAM and a Pentium process!
 or in order to run properly. Server needs at least 32MB or 64MB). You can get more information about this product at www.microsoft.com/exchange. I believe you are using PC-NFS Pro on the PCs, so SUN is in the middle of everything anyway.

Regards.

----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From mattb@deakin.edu.au Thu May 23 18:11 PDT 1996

Using SNMP would be your better option, then it allows your UNIX and your PC
people to talk to each other.

Your unix people can obtain file such as word, excel via mime and saving them
for later use.

Eudora would be the best bet for your PC's to Email with. You would only need
to
setup a POP server (probbaly POP3 is your best bet). Installing a POP server
is
relatively simple and shouldn't cause you any headaches.

Eudora/SMTP will be the most cost effective answer, as your CCMail costs will
go
through the roof, and SMTP and servers are already part of your SUN O/S.

Both a easy to Administer. Get hold of a book on Sendmail if you would like
to do heavy customization of your mailing. It runs well with just the usual
standard installation by default.

The only advantage with using CCMail is how do your Unix ppl Email their PC
users? At least with the Euroda/SMTP setup everyone is talking. (well writing
actually...)

We run here by settig up a POP server (Unix end) and Euroda for the PC users
whilst the
natives with Unix are happy to use whatever mailer they then like under Unix.

Hope that's of help.

Regards,

Matt.

-- 
----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From winhtin@csfb.co.jp Thu May 23 18:38 PDT 1996

Hi,

Hope this will help you with your final decision to select the appropriate mail application.

> 1. What is the diff. between CCmail and Unix mail. CCmail, Zmail, Eudora etc, etc are all User Agents (UA), which is like an interface for the users in order to send/receive/compose their mail. When you say, "Unix mail", I wonder what that means. There is a Unix version of CCMail, or at least used to be.

> 2. Which one is cost more interm of # license of 500 PCs. >From my experience, PC softwares are always substantially cheaper than a Unix based one.

> 3. MINE type (Excel, WORD) - which software (Eudora ?). Suggestion?. That depends on you current OS, if you are a Micrsoft Shop, Eudora is supposedly the best.

> 4. Which one will easy for Administrating. Again, that depends on what you want to accomplish with your mail app.

> 5. Advantages/Disavantages of between the two.

You have to consider what you want to accomplish with your Mail application. Is it just for simple sending/receiving mail? Do you want to attach other apps and transfer it among users? What are your main user apps? I'm not familiar with CCMail but am sure it will allow you to attach all the major apps. you can buy Zmail for multiplatform but am not sure which apps it supports on the PC side.

Cheers.

----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From dzaak@fm.bs.dlr.de Thu May 23 23:23 PDT 1996

Dear Tricia,

on our site we have a sun-mail server and a Novell Network with PC-Clients. The sun does normally it's buisiness with standard smtp. The Novell Server is equipped with Mercury. Mercury is a SMTP-Gateway. The Novell server runs the protocolls IPX and TCP/IP. The Email frontend for the PC Users is Pegasus Mail. Mime options: basic mime, gif, jpeg, postscript, audio and mpeg video. Both Pegasus and Mercury are both public domain. Easy to use, easy to set up.

Mit freundlichen Gruessen Frank Dzaak.

----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From jrp@apollo.ccp.up.pt Fri May 24 06:37 PDT 1996

Hi! I hope to be helpful about the 3rd question. I have a similar problem: My universe has a few dozens of users but they all expect full Internet features. Almost all Internet services are based on Unix servers and clients are a mix of Unix, win 3.11, win95, win NT, etc.

Right now I am using the mail server and client bundled with solaris 2.4

I have now decided to have a better interface at the PCs desktop using Eudora light (less costs envolved). You can get :

- the server(popper) from ftp.qualcomm.com/quest/unix/servers/popper/qpop2.1.4-r3.tar.Z (102021 bytes);

- the windows client from ftp.qualcomm.com/quest/windows/eudora/1.5/eudor154.exe(2060851 bytes); - the user manual from ftp.ftp.qualcomm.com/quest/windows/eudora/1.5/152pdf.exe;

I am hopping to have this installed sometime next week. I'll give you some results if you wish.

Joao Pimenta

----- End Included Message -----

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From justin@mesun12.engr.subr.edu Fri May 24 10:12 PDT 1996 Date: Fri, 24 May 1996 12:02:40 -0500 (CDT) From: Justin Young <justin@mesun12.engr.subr.edu> To: Tricia Kha <tkha@wsgc.com> Subject: Re: CCmail vs Unix snmp MIME-Version: 1.0

I'm confused by what you mean as Unix mail. Do you mean the standard Berkeley sendmail which comes with most UNIX's including Solaris/SunOS?

The cheapest solution for your PC users would be to install Pegasus, Eudora, or some other pop mail client on your PC's and a pop server on one UNIX box. It can be an old IPX,IPC or a PC running linux. You can get the pop server software from ftp.qualcomm.com. In addition, eudora is available for download from that same site. If you're running Novell, you can use Pegasus. It do local LAN as well as POP mail. Hope this helps.

Let me know how this one turns out.

> ----- End Included Message ----- > >

----- End Included Message -----

----- End Included Message -----

----- End Included Message -----



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:11:01 CDT