Linux based mail server for Dahbashi Engineering, Dubai

Home

Case Studies

Linux mail server for Dahbashi Engineering, Dubai

Client : Dahbashi Engineering
Activities : Repair, service and spare parts for Heavy equipment
No of users : 40 in main office and 10 in the branch offices
Active domains : www.dahbashi.com
Internet gateway : Dial up ISDN from Etisalat
Client OS : Mix flavors of Windows

Contacts

Contact person : Riyaz
Designation : System administrator
Contact information : 04 3470111 (off)
URL : www.dahbashi.com

Problem

The company had all the email accounts hosted outside. All the users were connecting directly and fetching their mails. This system had many problems.

Increase network traffic as all mails including the ones for local users had to go out.
No mechanism to filter spam mails, which were becoming a major nuisance
No mechanism to filter viruses at the gateway before they enter the network.
No mechanism to monitor and control the usage of emails for official purpose
Performance issues as all users were interacting directly with the remote mail server

Solution

Once Dahbashi commissioned NGIT to look at the problem and design a solution, we made a detailed study of the existing network and proposed a solution based on Fedora core. The free and opensource Fedora was chosen to keep the acquisition for the client low.

This was to be implemented on an old Proliant 3000, which had become redundant when the main application server was upgraded. The hardware had limited processing power, 9 GB of SCSI HDD and only 128 MB of RAM.

The solution involved placing an inhouse mailserver at their head office in Al quoz, where the majority of the users were based.

The proposed solution was based entirely on Opensource components to achieve the lowest TCO. The system also had to be very stable with minimal administration requirements as the company did not have a high level of Linux expertise inhouse.

The configuration of the mail server was challenging as the server had to relay some of the mails to the external hosting server and maintain the others locally. This was done using the transport map feature of Postfix.

The server was setup to filter the mails for viruses and spam at the gateway. This was achieved with a combination of Amavisd-new, ClamAV and Spamassassin. Within a 2 weeks of tuning up, we were able to achieve almost 100% virus detection and 95% spam filtering.

Platform

Hardware : Compaq Proliant 3000

Operating system : Fedora core 2.0

Services

Email server – Postfix based mail server. Postfix MTA. Mails are downloaded by fetchmail from a catchall account and distributed locally. All the mails are content scanned with amavisd-new. ClamAV is does the virus filtering and Spamassassin does Spam filtering. POP and IMAP is provided by Dovecoat and Squirrelmail provides a lightweight web client.

Achievements

Greatly reduced network traffic
95% reduction of spam
100% virus filtering at the server level
Better control and monitoring of mail traffic
Better user experience as the users interact with the local server only.

[ Back ]

Contact Us
Dubai
Office M-12, Bu Haleeba Gold Building, Abu Hail, Deira
P.O.Box : 88174, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Tel.: +971 4 2653202, Fax.: +971 4 2653203, Send Email

Kochi
NetworkGulf IT India
29/1132 A, Major Road, Vyttila, Kochi - 682 019
Kerala, India

Tel.: +91 484 4041254, Send Email

Voices

Network Gulf has done an excellent job by recommending and implementing the CRM system for our office. It has greatly improved our co-ordination and enables us to better manage our customer facing activities.

We had absolutely no disruption to our work and our staff had not difficulty in learning to use it. I am able to sit in my office and get a real time snapshot of all things happening around the company, thanks to Network Gulf.