Snow Leopard Server - Remote Mail Access

Greetings,
I'm looking to see the best way to support remote users of an OS X server for handling mail/calendar synchronization. Some users will be in environments where they could connect directly, while others would be able to use the standard VPN services in OS X server to connect and synchronize. Others, however, would probably be limited to HTTP/HTTPS access to the server.
I know that the web mail interface would work for this, though Squirrel Mail has never been a favorite of mine, but I'm attempting to support synchronization with their native clients. These would likely be Mail or Outlook, depending on the platform, though possibly Thunderbird would be in play.
When reviewing options, it seems as if installing an SSL VPN software package may be the best bet, even if that's not an OS X standard software component. These would appear to allow connectivity via HTTPS, and I'm wondering if anybody has had positive experiences on OS X Server with these.
Another option is different software all together for mail services, such as Zimbra Professional Edition. It has plugins to support directly synchronizing via HTTPS and thats certainly a good benefit, though it brings it's own infrastructure and doesn't use the OS X server internal capabilities.
Are there other features that I am missing that would provide this type of capability within the standard Snow Leopard Server installation, or other recommended products for supporting this in a heterogeneous environment?
Thanks!

Hi
Multi client full bandwidth VPN done directly on a server tends to be pretty wretched stuff. Dedicated VPN boxes are cheap enough if your firewall router does not already have VPN built into it.
Bob

Similar Messages

Snow Leopard Server incoming Mail

I am trying to set up my mail server with Snow Leopard Server. I am able to send messages out of accounts I've created, but I am not able to receive them. I receive this message:
Final-Recipient: rfc822;[email protected]
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.1
Diagnostic-Code: smtp;550 5.1.1 <[email protected]> invalid recipient
How do I correctly set up it to receive incoming mail?

It seems there are a few issues at hand and you're not alone. We've been experiencing the same issues on a clean install of SNS and have just turned off the default greylisting (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2130446&tstart=0) to see if that helps.
The mail server seems to be working instantly for all 'normal' email but attachments can be problematic. Testing from my dot me account I can send a 10 MB attachment and it arrives fine within a few minutes but if I send it 3 or 4 times one of them will inevitably fail. The sporadic behaviour is making it vary hard to track down and I'm finding the logs quite hard to decipher.
The other issue (which may well be the same issue) is where an email will arrive late - quite often exactly 60 minutes late - although we have seen this as much as 3 or 4 hours.
There are several threads on the front page relating to this but they've become a bit muddled and it's hard to know on which thread to post questions.
I know none of this specifically answers your questions but the other threads may give you somewhere to start. For now we're just monitoring things without the greylist and if the problems persist we'll have to delve a little deeper.

WHY IS MY SNOW LEOPARD SERVER INCOMING MAIL SO SLOW?

I have my mail set up on my server, when I send mail out the receipient receives it right away. When I have an incoming message coming to me, it takes forever to come in, sometimes over 25 minutes.

It seems there are a few issues at hand and you're not alone. We've been experiencing the same issues on a clean install of SNS and have just turned off the default greylisting (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2130446&tstart=0) to see if that helps.
The mail server seems to be working instantly for all 'normal' email but attachments can be problematic. Testing from my dot me account I can send a 10 MB attachment and it arrives fine within a few minutes but if I send it 3 or 4 times one of them will inevitably fail. The sporadic behaviour is making it vary hard to track down and I'm finding the logs quite hard to decipher.
The other issue (which may well be the same issue) is where an email will arrive late - quite often exactly 60 minutes late - although we have seen this as much as 3 or 4 hours.
There are several threads on the front page relating to this but they've become a bit muddled and it's hard to know on which thread to post questions.
I know none of this specifically answers your questions but the other threads may give you somewhere to start. For now we're just monitoring things without the greylist and if the problems persist we'll have to delve a little deeper.

Snow Leopard Server and FCServer

Hi.
I'm running FCServer on an iMac, and I'm currently looking for the best solution for giving co-workers outside of our office network remote access to our FCS database. The main purpose for this is for remote users to screen and download episode segments and movies from our database.
I was initially thinking VPN would be the only solution, but then I saw Snow Leopard Server has 'Mobile Access Server' built right into the OS, which appears designed to help users avoid having to use a VPN.
Before I go out and buy SLS for the company, I want to be sure it will work. Am I correct that Snow Leopard Server, and the built-in Mobile Access Server, will allow users outside of our network remote access to our FCSrvr database?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. And if this question is better suited for a different forum please let me know as well.
Thank you!

Hmmm... Thanks for the replies.
I posted this question in the OS X Server forum and got this response:
+"I haven't used Final Cut Server, but I'm pretty sure the Mobile Access Server wouldn't work with it. MAS works with plain HTTP, and the Address Book, iCal, and Mail (SMTP and IMAP) services; but FCServer is only partly HTTP-based, and I don't think even the HTTP part will work due to how MAS authenticates HTTP clients. Also, you might be thinking about using MAS as the same computer as FCServer, and it won't work that way -- MAS needs to be on a separate (internet-facing) computer from the actual origin server (which should be firewalled from the internet).+
+I'd go back to thinking about VPN... "+
Can anyone offer any more insight into this for me? I'm just an audio/video post-production guy, so this is all a little outside of my training.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

TLS and Snow Leopard server issues

I have a customer with Snow Leopard server running mail services. A few clients cannot email them due to what we think is a TLS related issue. Their host has TLS enabled for the mail server and they receive the below error message when sending to my customer:
15:27:41.044 3 SMTP-406902(domain.com) failed to establish a secure connection with [xx.xx.xx.xx]:25. Error Code=X509: signature algorithms do not match.
The host that cannot send seems to think it's a Postfix configuration issue but I don't know where to begin. It's not a firewall issue as we've tried that with no success.
Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

You are in the Leopard Server section, better to direct your question to the +Snow Leopard+ Section.

How do I remotely access my Snow Leopard server from my Mountain Lion MacBook Air

Does anyone know of an idiot's guide to setting up a VPN to access my server? I'm running Snow Leopard server in the office and I'd like to be able to access the server, probably just from one computer (MacBook Air runnung Mountain Lion) from home.
I'm not sure if it complicates things or not, but the office is in an area with poor broadband and so the internet connection is via satellite broadband. The set up is a satellite modem into a Gigabit router and the server is connected to the router via an unmanaged switch.
As an aside, I'm considering changing this set up so that the modem plugs into a Time Capsule and the server will connect directly into the TC. The desktops will then run into the server via the unmanaged switch or wirelessly via TC - any thoughts on the best set up here? Are cables into a switch better/worse than using TC's wireless facility.
Is this something that I, as a reasonably competent computer operator but definitely not an IT expert, could do, or should I get someone in to set it up for me?
Thanks in advance
Jim

VPNs aren't particularly special or weird or secret or such. They're "just" a network connection. A sometimes very fussy network connection, but a network connection.
My preference is to use a firewall that includes an embedded VPN server. This for several reasons, as it avoids trying to forward the VPN through a device that's using NAT [1], and it means you can connect to multiple devices on the target LAN, and you can connect even if the OS X Server box is down.
Other folks will forward the VPN through NAT, and use the VPN server that's available in various versions of OS X Server.
Forwarding a VPN through NAT does work, but can also sometimes not work. NAT can cause some types of VPNs to get tossed off when (for instance) there's a second VPN connection arriving.
In various cases everything connects and works the first time, and in other cases it's trial-and-error.
With a VPN-capable firewall (which is a step above your average residential firewall), usually configuring the firewall as a L2TP server or the Cisco protocol, if you want to use the standard OS X or iOS clients. Or PPTP — which is easier to get working — but less secure. Once the firewall and the VPN server is set up — and that's where most of the "fun" is — then the set-up in Network Preferences is (usually) pretty simple.
There are thousands of OS X VPN set-up articles around, but the details all hinge on the particular VPN server, and whether you're going to try to push the VPN through (for instance) that Tome Capsule and its NAT. Until you sort out your VPN target and/or VPN client, and what sort of attacks you're securing against...
As for this case, satellite latency is large. The latency involved is the time it takes to the command or the text from your local Mac to the satellite ~35,786 kilometers up and then ~35,786 kilometers back down, and then the response back again. That's about a quarter second, each way, at the speed of light. Transferring big files is fine (once the connection is open and the transfer gets rolling), but anything interactive — such as a typical use of a VPN — is going to have a noticable lag.
Yes, it'll be easiest to get somebody to work through your requirements and expectations, and initially set this up for you. Or you can use this as an opportunity to read about and learn more about IP routing and networking and VPNs, too.
[1] VPNs seek to ensure that the network connection is secure, and from a known client IP source address to the IP address of the target VPN server. NAT explicitly obscures the network connections, and often has multiple client hosts located behind one IP address. Put another way, the VPN and NAT software implementations are working at cross-purposes.

Small problem: how using "Remote Desktop" on Snow Leopard Server

Hello,
How can I login to the Mac Mini Snow Leopard Server from 2 different Macs ?
Before I bought my Mac Mini Server in July, I asked the Apple Support if Snow Leopard Server has the equivalent of the Windows Remote Desktop functionality. He told me that it is possible. He did not tell me how, but I believed him.
I cannot find it in the documentation. Only 1 person can use screensharing. But I need more than 1 person working on the Mac OS X Server.
I moved our Photo library to the Mac OS X Server. With filesharing it takes 5 minutes to start iPhoto on our client iMac ( 1Gbps network). That is unworkable. So, from more iMacs users have to login to the server and start iPhoto on the server.
Thanks for the solution.
Hubert Anemaat

As per Jason's reply, there are two Terminal Server products available for Mac OS X. I have been testing both, both work in the same sort of way and will allow multiple simultaneous users to connect.
The typical approach is to (obviously) first to install one of these Terminal Server programs on your server. Then you (ideally) need another server hosting your Mac network home directories, and it needs to share the network home directories via NFS rather than AFP.
Note: Due to the way Mac OS X handles mounting AFP shares, you cannot have two users using the same share at the same time as the login defines the privileged's and the first logins privileged's would not be suitable for the second user, this is also why you cannot use "Fast User Switching" with two network login accounts when using AFP.
So, a client uses an RDC client (e.g. the free Microsoft Remote Desktop Client) to connect to the Terminal Server, this initiates a network login which access the users home directory via NFS.
RDC client (Mac or PC) ------> Mac Terminal Server <------ Mac network home directories
I have not tried iPhoto, but have tried various other applications, e.g. FileMaker, AppleScript, Microsoft Office 2004, etc. and the only problem I have hit so far is that Visual Basic in Office 2004 generates errors but Word and Excel otherwise work. Remember Office 2008 does not support Visual Basic (i.e. Macros).
I would actually expect iPhoto to work for multiple users as long as you use NFS. Using NFS for network home directories rather than AFP has actually 'fixed' a couple of badly written applications that had problems with AFP based network home directories, e.g. Adobe Acrobat 9.
I am using Mac OS X 10.6.4 Servers.

Mail A record Snow Leopard Server

DNS lookup is reporting that I have No A record for mail. This is a new server setup on Snow Leopard Server 10.6.8 below is a screen shot from DNS Lookup:
However if I use dig -t A hkmurray.net from terminal I think things look correct, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
RESULTS:
hkmurray:~ butch$ dig -t A hkmurray.net
; <<>> DiG 9.6-ESV-R4-P3 <<>> -t A hkmurray.net
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 44517
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;hkmurray.net.                              IN          A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
hkmurray.net.                    10800          IN          A          68.169.178.128
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
hkmurray.net.                    10800          IN          NS          NS1.hkmurray.net.
hkmurray.net.                    10800          IN          NS          NS2.hkmurray.net.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
NS1.hkmurray.net.          10800          IN          A          68.169.178.128
NS2.hkmurray.net.          10800          IN          A          68.169.178.128
;; Query time: 1 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Mon May 27 09:27:52 2013
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 114
hkmurray:~ butch$
I am also attaching a screen shot of my DNS setup in Server Admin and any advice on how to correct if not correctly setup would be appreciated. (Oh, it appears I have nameservers set correctly for they will resolve). How to configure mail in Server Admin Mail would also be appreciated, for some reason I always have trouble with mail setup.
Thanks in advance for giving up your time to help others.

Get the name of the mail server...
$ dig MX +short HKMURRAY.NET
10 mail.HKMURRAY.NET.
$
Ok. Now translate the MX record to the IP address...
$ dig +short mail.HKMURRAY.NET
hkmmurray.NET.
$
Whoops. That's not an A record.   (If it were an A record, I'd get an IP address there.)
It's (also) not typical to have a domain as your mail server A record, either.
Ignoring that error and checking further — various mail servers won't check further, as the RFC requires an A record here — and on to the next translation:
$ dig +short HKMURRAY.NET
68.169.178.128
$
Ok. That's the public IP.
Checking further — the following won't return the expected values, as it's already known that this mail server is not using an A record — the reverse translation is (also) incorrect:
$ dig +short -x 68.169.178.128
host-68-169-178-128.EPSOLT1.epbfi.com.
$
As part of establishing your mail server DNS, your ISP needs to add a PTR record (reverse DNS) for your IP address. Probably to mail.hkmurray.net, if that's what you're using for your mail server.
In conclusion, you don't have an A record.
There's no point in having two name servers on the same host address, either.
Make sure your DNS server doesn't allow general access for translations, too. If you do, you'll end up as part of a DNS-based attack; I've seen that happen with DNS servers, and the load on the servers and the Internet connection becomes... large.   Just serve your own records, with no recursion, etc. (It can often be easiest to move the public DNS translations out to your DNS ISP and their DNS servers, too. They're already set up to deal with reflection and magnification and other ugliness.)

I transferred files from a NAS server to the Mac Mini Snow Leopard Server and now some of the files have Custom Access and can't be opened by some users. How do I fix this?

We're setting up our Mac Mini Snow Leopard Server, and in the process transferred files that had been stored and accessed from our Blackarmor NAS server over to the Mac. These files were all created on PC's and are Office Excel files, WordPerfect files or PDF's. When you look at the files on the Mac from the Mac and bring up Get Info for the affected file, it says that the file has Custom Access. The files that work properly don't have that configuration. I can access and open the files on some computers, but some users can't open the files from their computer even though they can see it. We're all using PC's and they get the Error: Access Denied-Contact your administrator--or something similar. I've seen on the web similar issues and it may have something to do with ACL permissions. I don't know enough about Mac OS to understand this, but what is baffling is that they can be opened from some PC's but not others, and all of the Users have the same accessibility to the files. Thanks for a solution!!

Oh, on the losing Internet, try this...
Make a New Location, Using network locations in Mac OS X ...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2712
10.7 & 10.8…
System Preferences>Network, top of window>Locations>Edit Locations, little plus icon, give it a name.
10.5.x/10.6.x/10.7.x instructions...
System Preferences>Network, click on the little gear at the bottom next to the + & - icons, (unlock lock first if locked), choose Set Service Order.
The interface that connects to the Internet should be dragged to the top of the list.
Instead of joining your Network from the list, click the WiFi icon at the top, and click join other network. Fill in everything as needed.
For 10.5/10.6, System Preferences>Network, unlock the lock if need be, highlight the Interface you use to connect to Internet, click on the advanced button, click on the DNS tab, click on the little plus icon, then add these numbers...
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
Click OK.
PS. Your English is quite good & completely understandable.

How to resolve network issue or dns to access web page on snow leopard server?

I have my network setup like as follows:
internet > router 1 > ethernet ports > switch > router 2
I have a mac osx snow leopard server connected to "router 1", but it is so slow when accessing a web page hosted on the server from a browser on a workstation connected to either router 1 or router 2?
Is there a problem with my network setup or maybe because I changed the name to newservername.local?

@Jeff and @Camelot,
I think it is a DNS issue. I completely reset the DNS settings on server and the local name with the steps below, but now cannot access the site hosted on the server at all
I used a modified version of http://www.mkahn.com/2010/09/configuring-dns-on-mac-os-x-10-6-snow-leopard-serve r-for-hosting/ to reset the server set
1. Stop DNS Service in Server Admin
2. Close Server Admin
3. Obtain 10.6 DNS Default files (below)
4. Overwrite the DNS files with DNS Default files:
/etc/dns/loggingOptions.conf.apple
/etc/dns/options.conf.apple
/etc/dns/publicView.conf.apple
/var/named/named.ca/etc/named.conf
/var/named/named.local
/var/named/localhost.zone
5. Restart your server
All machines have 1ms ping responses within the network including this snow leopard server that I am trying to setup. There is another test web server that return pages instantly within this network so I doubt it is a network issue, but a DNS issue.

Unable to access gateway and DNS via VPN (L2TP) with Snow Leopard Server

Summary:
After rebooting my VPN server, i am able to establish a VPN (L2TP) connection from outside my private network. I am able to connect (ping, SSH, …) the gateway only until the first client disconnects. Then i can perfectly access all the other computers of the private network, but i cannot access the private IP address of the gateway.
Additionally, during my first VPN connection, my DNS server, which is on the same server, is not working properly with VPN. I can access it with the public IP address of my gateway. I can access it from inside my private network. A port scan indicates me that the port 53 is open, but a dig returns me a timeout.
Configuration:
Cluster of 19 Xserve3.1 - Snow Leopard Server 10.6.2
Private network 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 -> domain name: cluster
-> 1 controller, which act as a gateway for the cluster private network, with the following services activated:
DHCP, DNS, firewall (allowing all incoming traffic for each groups for test purposes), NAT, VPN, OpenDirectory, web, software update, AFP, NFS and Xgrid controller.
en0: fixed public IP address -> controller.example.com
en1: 192.168.1.254 -> controller.cluster
-> 18 agents with AFP and Xgrid agent activated:
en1: 192.168.1.x -> nodex.cluster with x between 1 and 18
VPN (L2TP) server distributes IP addresses between 192.168.1.201 and 192.168.1.210 (-> vpn1.cluster to vpn10.cluster). Client informations contain the private network DNS server informations (192.168.1.254, search domain: cluster).
_*Detailed problem description:*_
After rebooting the Xserve, my VPN server works fine except for the DNS. My client receives the correct informations:
Configure IPv4: Using PPP
IPv4 address: 192.168.1.201
Subnet Mask:
Router: 192.168.1.254
DNS: 192.168.1.254
Search domain: cluster
From my VPN client, i can ping all the Xserve of my cluster (192.168.1.1 to 18 and 192.168.1.254). If i have a look in Server Admin > Settings > Network, i have three interfaces listed: en0, en1 and ppp0 of family IPv4 with address 192.168.1.254 and DNS name controller.cluster.
The DNS server returns me timeouts when i try to do a dig from my VPN client even if i am able to access it directly from a computer inside or outside my private network.
After i disconnect, i can see in Server Admin that the IP address of my ppp0 interface has switch to my public IP address.
Then i can always establish a VPN (L2TP) connection, but the client receives the following informations:
Configure IPv4: Using PPP
IPv4 address: 192.168.1.202
Subnet Mask:
Router: (Public IP address of my VPN server)
DNS: 192.168.1.254
Search domain: cluster
From my VPN client, i can access all the other computers of my network (192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.18) but when i ping my gateway (192.168.1.254), it returns me timeouts.
I have two "lazy" solutions to this problem: 1) Configure VPN and DNS servers on two differents Xserve, 2) Put the public IP address of my gateway as DNS server address, but none of these solutions are acceptable for me…
Any help is welcome!!!

I would suggest taking a look at:
server admin:vpn:settings:client information:network route definitions.
as I understand your setup it should be something like
192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 private.
at least as a start. I just got done troubleshooting a similar issue but via two subnets:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2292827&tstart=0

Remote Desktop and Snow Leopard Server

What is the best way to use Remote Desktop with Snow Leopard Server?
I purchased a mac mini with snow leopard server and Remote desktop so I can easily manage my 11 computers, install and upgrade software etc. etc.
The mac mini server will basically be nothing but a server.
I will use as my main computer a mac pro. Do I need to install Remote Desktop on the server and on my mac pro? What is the best way to deploy the services of Remote desktop and mac os x server?

You install Apple Remote Desktop on the machine you want to control from. In this case, install on your Mac Pro. All you have to do on the clients (controlled Macs) is enable remote management in the System Preferences under Sharing. Just make sure that all your controlled Macs are up to date on their ARD version (v3.3.2) which can be taken care of from Software Update.

Is there a way to access notes from iPhone 4 in Snow Leopard without using Mail?

I want to be able to access the notes from the iPhone 4 notes app on a Macbook Pro, running Snow Leopard, without using Mail. Is there a way to do this? Any good 3rd party software that does it without storing the information in the Cloud?

You could probably use something like PhoneView
http://www.ecamm.com/mac/phoneview/
but, frankly, I thnk that's more of hassle than just setting up an iCloud or other IMAP account on the iPad.
Even if Notes syncing is the only feature you use, it's going to be a far more seemless experience.
Matt

MySQL Workbench on Remote Snow Leopard Server

How do I connect to MySQL on Snow Leopard Server using Workbench ???
I have freed up some of the permissions, such as port 3306, in the firewall section of Admin. However,
this has not done the job and need to keep a firewall on a server running remotely. It is necessary to connect to MySQL before you install the database. It is needed because you must connect to the server in order to install the database enabling the script of the SQL file. I get an error that says: "Lost connection to MySQL server at 'reading initial communication packet,' error 61." This happens when I press the button in Workbench that says: "Test Connection." I can go into MySQL and enter a password and create a database. This is necessary to load the actual data at a later time. I am also using Cold Fusion. This, too, is waiting for a connection to the MySQL server from Workbench.
Any ideas ???? Thx, Ted

If this is Adobe Workbench as I might suspect, that's probably the wrong tool to use for troubleshooting connections and related.
Try [Sequel Pro|http://www.sequelpro.com> or another similar tool.
If you're running remotely via VPN, that adds additional complexity to the configuration. As part of both local and particularly remote testing, using light-weight diagnostics (such as ping) would be warranted. This before running any juggernaut-class packages over the link.
(Put bluntly, very few juggernaut-class software packages from most any vendor will generate decent diagnostics for network errors.)

Please help, After mac 10.5.8 mail server migrated to snow leopard server?

Hi,
All my old emails date has changed to the date on which i migrated to snow leopard server, all the old emails show as they arrived on 31st of Dec 2009.
How do I fix it. Very Very important to me to have the arrived date.
Please help
Thanks,
Gulab Pasha

here is a link of other users having wrong date problems after upgrading to 10.6
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2134525
Some people have managed to fix their date problems. The easiest workaround is to add the column "Date Sent" under (View->Columns->Date Sent) in mail.app and to sort by the send date not the received date.
Hope this helps

Snow Leopard Server - Remote Mail Access

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for