Sun Java Communications Suite 5 Deployment Planning Guide

Messaging Server Support for Standards and Functionality

This section describes standards supported by Messaging Server, as well as other supported functionality.

Support for Standard Protocols

Messaging Server supports most national, international, and industry standards related to electronic messaging. For a complete list, see Appendix A, Supported Standards, in Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.3 Administration Reference.

Support for Hosted Domains

Messaging Server provides full support for hosted domains—email domains that are outsourced by an ISP. That is, the ISP provides email domain hosting for an organization by operating and maintaining the email services for that organization remotely. A hosted domain can share the same Messaging Server host with other hosted domains. In earlier LDAP-based email systems, a domain was supported by one or more email server hosts. With Messaging Server, many domains can be hosted on a single server. For each hosted domain, there is an LDAP entry that points to the user and group container for the domain and provides various domain-specific default settings.

When you define a domain, there must be a corresponding domain entry in the directory; that is, you must have an LDAP entry for the domain. Attributes such as mailAlternateAddress and mailEquivalentAddress depend on the existence of domain entries in the directory. Contrast this with vanity domains, which are domain names associated with an individual user, not with a specific server or hosted domain. The vanity domain does not have an LDAP entry for the domain name.

Note –

Because of their increased operational overhead, vanity domains are not recommended.

Support for User Provisioning

Messaging Server uses a centralized LDAP database for storing information about users, groups, and domains. At this time, Messaging Server supports two schema options, Sun Java System LDAP Schema version 1 (Schema 1) and Sun Java System LDAP Schema version 2 (Schema 2). The provisioning options will depend on which schema you have chosen. See Appendix A, Messaging Server Pre-Installation Considerations and Procedures, in Sun Java Communications Suite 5 Installation Guide for more information.

Messaging Server provisioning for Schema 2 is done using Delegated Administrator, as documented in the Sun Java System Delegated Administrator 6.4 Administration Guide. Delegated Administrator provides a graphical user interface and a set of command-line utilities for managing the users, groups, domains, resources, and service packages within an organization.

Schema 1 is supported by the iPlanet Delegated Administrator for Messaging product, which provides a graphical user interface and a set of command-line utilities for managing the users, groups, and domains within an organization. You can also use the following documentation, pertaining to previous software releases, for managing users, groups, and domains in Schema 1:

iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 Provisioning Guide - Describes how to create domain, user, group, or administrator entries using LDAP
iPlanet Messaging and Collaboration Schema Reference - Describes Schema 1 for Communications Suite
iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 Reference Manual - Describes the iPlanet Delegated Administrator command-line utilities for managing users, groups, and domains
iPlanet Delegated Administrator online help

Note –

Access Manager console provides minimal Messaging Server and Calendar Server LDAP user entry provisioning using Access Manager Services. Because the interface provides no input validation, user entries that cannot receive email or otherwise don’t function will be created without reporting any errors. As a result, use this interface for demonstration purposes only.

Delegated Administrator, which is described in the Sun Java System Delegated Administrator 6.4 Administration Guide, is the recommended mechanism for provisioning Communications Suite users.

Support for Unified Messaging

Messaging Server provides the basis for a complete unified messaging solution: the concept of using a single message store for email, voicemail, fax, video, and other forms of communication.

Support for Webmail

Messaging Server currently ships with two native client user interfaces (UI):

Messenger Express
Communications Express

Going forward, no new features will be added to the Messenger Express user interface. It has been deprecated in favor of the Communications Express user interface. Sun Microsystems, Inc. will announce an end-of-life timeline for Messenger Express at a future date.

See the Communications Express documentation for more information:

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/coll/1312.1

Messaging Server Security and Access Control

Messaging Server provides the following security and access control features:

Support for password login and certificate-based login to POP, IMAP, HTTP, or SMTP
Support for email encryption using S/MIME
Support for standard security protocols: Transport Layer Security (TLS), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL)
Delegated administration
Client IP address access filters to POP, IMAP, SMTP, and HTTP
Filtering of unsolicited bulk email using system-wide, per-user, and server-side Sieve rules
Support for milter-based email filtering

Messaging Server Administration User Interfaces

Messaging Server consists of several modular, independently configurable components that provide support for email transport and access protocols.

To configure the Message Transfer Agent (MTA), Messaging Server provides a complete set of command-line utilities and configuration files stored locally on the server. To configure the Message Store and message access services, Messaging Server provides a complete set of command-line utilities.

See the Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.3 Administration Guide for more information.