Hosting Multiple Mail Domains in SL server on a Mac Mini

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Level 1

0 points

Hosting Multiple Mail Domains in SL server on a Mac Mini

So I have been trying to find out the answer to this question, and I keep getting conflicting information, and I am hoping someone here can help me solve this.

We are running two very small business with two different Domains (@company1 & @Company2) Each company has a website, and corporate email. All I want to do is bring all of this in-house onto one Mac Mini server. The calendars and contacts will be shared between the two principle owners of each company (my bosses) as they support each other in there individual business.

The Apple "Genius" says this is not possible, I believe and have been told by a few people and after reading posts on here that it is possible to have multiple domains on one Mac Mini Server. I would like to figure this out quickly as the companies have a need to move off the current email provider as fast as possible due to complications with iOS4 and the iPads.

Any Help from people who are doing this, or know it to be possible or impossible would be greatly appreciated!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4), Snow Leopard

Posted on Jul 20, 2010 3:26 PM

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Answer 1

palouis

Level 1

4 points

Jul 22, 2010 1:41 AM in response to Ari Saul

Can I add a simple "Me too"?

Would seem dumb to have to use a Linux box just for a coupler of small domains ...

Paul

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Answer 2

Jul 22, 2010 4:54 AM in response to Ari Saul

Yes this is possible, I have a Mac Mini Server running several mail domains coupled with several web domains, all working fine.

Hope that helps

Dan

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Answer 3

Jul 23, 2010 5:01 AM in response to Ari Saul

This is entirely possible, and supported by the Server Admin user interface for the mail server.

Start with the [Mac OS X Server Mail Services Administration Manual|http://images.apple.com/server/macosx/docs/Mail Service_Adminv10.6.pdf], page 73

Quoth the Book Of Mail:


A Mail Service Virtual Host
Virtual hosting is a method you can use to host more than one domain name on the same 
computer and IP address, with overlapping mail user names.
For example, a mail server can receive mail transfer requests for two domains, 
mail.example1.com and mail.example2.com, both of which resolve to the same IP 
address. For mail.example1.com, the server delivers mail to “bob@example1.com” 
to a user mailbox for “bob,” while it also delivers mail to “bob@example2.com” to 
a different user mailbox. Virtual hosts are essentially the converse of local host aliases.

One subtlety here is that the domains sharing the same mail server and all co-resident on the IP address will all tend to have the same public host name listed as their MX (mail exchange) server of record in the public DNS. This so that forward and reverse DNS and MX server all line up for the mail server for all the domains involved.

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Answer 4

DCGOO

Level 3

769 points

Jul 23, 2010 10:13 AM in response to MrHoffman

You can also set up multiple domains without going to the trouble of virtual hosting. You simply lose the ability for overlapping user names between the domains. But for small installations, this may be easier.

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Answer 5

Jul 24, 2010 6:10 AM in response to DCGOO

This simpler option wasn't apparent to me from the documentation. Is it there?

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Answer 6

Jul 24, 2010 7:09 AM in response to RobertNichols

Yes. It's documented. It's even mentioned in what I quoted above. "Virtual hosts are essentially the converse of local host aliases."

Server Admin > select server > Mail > Settings > Advanced > Hosting

Here's the 10.4 stuff, but (other than the cited page numbers) this stuff hasn't changed all that much:
[Adding or Removing Local Host Aliases|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=ServerAdmin/10.4/en/c1ms32 .html] and [Adding or Removing Virtual Hosts|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=ServerAdmin/10.4/en/c1ms35.h tml]

I don't know if it's considered deprecated, but I'd tend to use the virtual hosts anyway, only because sooner or later somebody's going to want to have the mail to user foobar go different places in the different domains. And contrary to the earlier reply, I don't find the host aliases are particularly simpler than the virtual domains.

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Answer 7

DCGOO

Level 3

769 points

Jul 24, 2010 11:31 AM in response to MrHoffman

Well it simpler in that you do not have to enter accounts with user@domain.com, just user. Even simpler yet if you (like I do) want multiple domain names behind some of the users. I have a handful of personal domains that I want to be in, plus 3 that belong to my church. All three of which are equivalent (church.org, church.com, and so forth). It would be a pain to build user@domain for each. I do not have that many mail users anyway, only about 15 or so, not counting the church lists I run. But you are correct, overlapping usernames could/would be nice in a larger setting. I can work out any conflicts 🙂

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Answer 8

Paul Vail

Level 1

144 points

Aug 26, 2010 5:03 PM in response to DCGOO

Easy to do.

Visit here: http://www.rduonline.com/notes.mgi

Download the large PDF.

Read the section on mail admin. It's for 10.5, but not that much has changed.

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