Hello,

Just an update on this, it appears I have a few things incorrect.

It appears that you only need to create an INI file if there is not an AD user for the mailbox you want to create.

 "The ini file is only needed when you want to

create a mailbox that doesn't have a corresponding user in the AD."

Mailbox names must match AD user names, so I would still  have to change the mailbox names and edit security when I move to MS OS.

Thomas, Frank mentioned that he would try to contact you.

Thanks,

 Mark

Hello,

I have been running Mercury32 on a Netware 4.11 server for many years.  The time has come and I must retire the netware server due to DR concerns.

Currently using version 4.62 run from a windows XP machine. 

I use Mercury32 and it's mail boxes to route mail (other clients like Outlook grab incoming mail from the Mercury32 boxes)

I "piggy back" two Mercury32 installs for routing purposes off site.  (I run 2 separate installs of Mercury32 from a single XP machine to handle difficult routing)

Is there some good instruction on how to move this over to a Microsoft based network? 

Some questions are:

1.) What features will I lose?

2.) How to Add/Manage users/mailboxes without the use of nconfig.exe?

3.) Can I just move the Mercury32 install directories and mail boxes to a MS server and what configuration settings would need changed?

4.) Will I have to manually edit mailbox security for all users?

5.) Will my mailing lists be affected in any way? 

6.) How will merucy32 deal with postmaster deliveries? (they goto a Netware user account)

7.) How much re-configuration is necessary? (i.e. directory paths etc)

Any general instruction for this would be a great help.

Thanks much,

Mark 

Just a general answer. We did this back in 1997 on several clients, but then moved from the NLM version to M/32. As the maildrops are filebased, you need to move them to the XP-machine beneath the MAIL directory and create local Mercury-users (nconfig doesn't work for local userbase). Your mailing lists will not be lost. As security measures, you should not allow any direct file access to the Mercury machine, unless you run Pegasus Mail directly integrated with Mercury.

You can easily do a test setup in a virtual machine as you're already very familiar with Mercury.

> I have been running Mercury32 on a Netware 4.11 server for many years.  The time has come and I must retire the netware server due
> to DR concerns.
>
> Currently using version 4.62 run from a windows XP machine.
>
> I use Mercury32 and it's mail boxes to route mail (other clients like Outlook grab incoming mail from the Mercury32 boxes)
>
> I "piggy back" two Mercury32 installs for routing purposes off site.  (I run 2 separate installs of Mercury32 from a single XP
> machine to handle difficult routing)
>
> Is there some good instruction on how to move this over to a Microsoft based network?
>
> Some questions are:
>
> 1.) What features will I lose?

All of the direct access from Mercury/32 to the NOS.  Mercury/32 on Windows does not talk to the OS to get user info.

>
> 2.) How to Add/Manage users/mailboxes without the use of
> nconfig.exe?

Configuration | Manage local users.  You can create tools to do this management of the pmail.usr and the creation users mail directories and basis files but this means you'll have to create the tools.
>
> 3.) Can I just move the Mercury32 install directories and mail boxes to a MS server and what configuration settings would need changed?

Pretty much.  You need to create a pmail.usr file if you want to user the personal names in the advanced delivery.

>
> 4.) Will I have to manually edit mailbox security for all users?

Yes!  And from my point of view this is the biggest problem unless you are better at this than I am.  ;-)

>
> 5.) Will my mailing lists be affected in any way?

No.

>
> 6.) How will merucy32 deal with postmaster deliveries? (they go to a Netware user account)

They go to a local account you have using the manage local users pretty much the same way it was done in Netware.

>
> 7.) How much re-configuration is necessary? (i.e. directory paths etc)

Actually not that much at all other than creating the local delivery structure.

That said, one of the beta testers Frank Fesevur <omega@fesevur.com> has created a mn_win.dll that works in a similar manner to the NDS mn_nw4.dll (mn_nw3.dll for bindery) that works with the windows AD type structure that you might want to try.  It's a beta but a number of the testers are using it in production.

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     http://www.fesevur.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8&Itemid=22

Most important new features:

- Support for groups. When a group is defined in the Core options, a mail
send to this group will be delivered to all OS users that have a valid
mailbox. Be sure to fill the host as well, otherwise it probably doesn't
work as expected.

- Support for MAILUSERS and NOMAIL mail authorization. By default
everyone is allowed to use email.

What is next? The most important things in the back-end are implemented.
Various things still need to be done, but first I will concentrate on the
UI for user management as we discussed here before.

FYI, I am running mn_win on our production server without any problems for
a couple of days now. Most users are still local (standalone mode) users
and thus authenticate via the userinfo.ini. I wrote a Cygwin bash script
to create the userinfo.ini based upon the PASSWD.PM file. A relative small
group of users use Windows authentication, but I'm extending this group.

Peter,

I had briefly installed Mercury32 in non-netware mode many years ago, however I'm not sure how to get my netware-enabled install in the non-netware mode?

(i.e. Under Mercy32 config, the Manage Local Users is greyed out)

If I install Mercury32 fresh in non-netware mode, then I'll have a lot of re-configuration to do with paths etc.

(Humm, I believe I may have to do this anyway however if the netware server is gone....)

I was trying to do the least re-configuration as possible.

Can I just copy my Mercury32 install directory onto my new non-netware server and then reconfigure?  I don't want to lose my mailing lists, etc etc.

Thanks,

Mark 

Thomas,

Good to hear from you! 

I believe I will try the mn_win as I don't want to have to create tools, manually add users, and set that all up.  If it works with active directory, that would be just great.

Thanks for the tip.

If I just move my current Netware Mercury/32 install directories and mail boxesto a MS server, how do I switch Mercury32 back to "standalone mode" over netware mode?  My manage local users is currently greyed out.

Thanks,

Mark

If I just move my current Netware Mercury/32 install directories and

mail boxesto a MS server, how do I switch Mercury32 back to "standalone

mode" over netware mode?  My manage local users is currently greyed out.

Move the nw_nw4.dll out of the Mercury/32 directory and it will run in the non-Netware mode, mercury.ini needs to be changed as well if you were running NDS.  Personally I would re-install in a separate directory to create the local directory structure (or with mn_win.dll).  You can copy the files you need from the old system to the new (mailing lists, etc) and then run separately until you are ready to make the change over.

Thomas,

I believe that is what I will do, thanks.

I took a look at mn_win.dll and it appears that it currently does not help much in the arena of managing users / mailboxes.  Using it you still need to:

1. Manually create mail boxes

2. Set all permissions on those boxes

3. Manually create an INI file

4. Manually encript passwords so they are not stored as plain text

I believe it only helps with authentication, that is, it looks at the Active Directory database of users for an authentication comparision.

I believe Mercury32 standalone does not authenicate at all, it relies on mialbox permissions only to block access to e-mail.

I have to set all mailbox permissions anyway.  I'll likely try them both out and see how it goes.

I sent the author an e-mail to see if he was still working on the project, no reply yet.

Thanks much,

Mark