Quick question about stand alone possibility

Question asked by Richard Laliberte - Yesterday at 6:08 PM

Unanswered

Alright, this one might be tricky, but it's something i was wondering about while talking among staff.

Part 1

Is it possible to install a stand alone copy of Smartermail on something like a NAS (to allow for greater storage capacity) but user our main Smartermail server to handle both incoming and outgoing emails (to protect the clients IP address) i now outgoing is possible, just wasn't sure about incoming, or about installing on a NAS. We figure NAS as they are a little cheaper overall than servers/firewalls and so forth.

Part 2

Assuming part one is possible, Would the cloud server be able to handle all the spam / virus checks, or would that need to also be installed on the NAS?

Part 3

Also assuming Part 1 is possible, what would remote backups for a NAS look like. If a client has say 500GB of emails on a NAS, is Smartermail, or recommended backup software, capable of only backing up changes? or would the entire 500GB need to be transferred to the remote backup drive daily?

The reason we ask is, currently we have a provider that handles our Smartermail server, so we aren't by any means experts at this. But, most providers charge through the nose monthly for large storage capacities. We've recently been losing larger clients to MS On Premise due to that fact that they can have virtually unlimited local storage. If we can come to the table with a Smartermail version that still keeps relative control and security with our main server, we might be able to finally compete.

Just wondering about the possibility.

Thanks!

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Brian Bjerring-Jensen Replied

Yesterday at 10:49 PM

We can do that so you can be competetive. No problem.

But yeah, you can use shares on a NAS as main storage. We run ours on C: and the mail directory on E:

Gabriele Maoret - SERSIS Replied

Today at 12:03 AM

Part 1: in my opinion it's possible, but with some limitations:

If you want to install SmarterMail completely inside a NAS (including the application part and not only the Mail folder store), the NAS itself must act as a virtualization server and SmarterMail must be installed in a VM (the operating system for SmarterMail must be a Windows server or a supported Linux distribution).
This implies that the NAS must have the power needed to handle the virtualization environment (for example, some high-end QNAP NAS or TrueNAS servers are fine, or check other brands...), so in my opinion they will not be so cheap, they could cost as much (and in some cases even more...) than a "normal server"...
In any case, you still need a firewall. NAS does not exempt you from securing your system...

Gabriele Maoret - Head of SysAdmins and CISO at SERSIS Currently manages 6 SmarterMail installations (1 in the cloud for SERSIS which provides services to a few hundred third-party email domains + 5 on-premise for customers who prefer to have their mail server in-house)

Douglas Foster Replied

Today at 5:01 AM

About part 2: SMTP assumes multi-hop relay. I believe inbound filtering should always be performed on an inbound gateway and outbound delivery (possibly to include outbound filtering) should be performed by an outbound gateway. You may still need filtering.softeare on the mail store server to handle insider threats and account compromise. But the defense techniques are different between unaurhenticated messages from the Internet and authenticated messages from logged in users. Your choice of mail store hardware is irrelevant to your security design.

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