combining linux and windows??????

[rituraj.goswami]

well, i have a got a bit of problem. i'm not geeky about windows... so asking if anybody could put in some suggestions. one of my clients has a windows 2003 server and he wants a linux machine as a backup, if the windows machine goes down. he doesn't wanna let go of the windows machine as he has invested a lot in the license. this machine [windows] has a mail server, a web server, a ftp server, and exchange server. there are 2 problems i'm facing.
1. how do i back-up or synchronize the mail server's users mail with the linux machines.
2. what the hell does the exchange server does here? working as a mail server and what do i implement with it instead of it linux???

[coopstah13]

Open-Xchange - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

i'm not sure how easily you can do this

[zombykillah]

The most easy way would be to create a samba share and let windows just use the space for automatic backups.

The other ways:
I am guessing that the Server is a AD Server too.
So if you wanna install a complete Backup which replaces the Windows Server within a minute you will need following:
- samba 4
- exchange proxy (openchange)

If you do a search you will find out that samba4 is in alpha status.
Last week I tried to install a exchange "proxy" but I couldn't finish it.

So if we stay within released programs:
The best you can do is set up am Mail server with fetchmail (or something like that) which just gets all the mails.

[scathefire]

In most instances where Active Directory and Exchange are involved, you best bet is to just let that dog lie. I've found when most clients have been sucked into the Exchange realm that its hard to escape, even if they wanted to.

You should have no problem migrating the web and FTP stuff off. Unless the web stuffs are written in ASP (assuming they are running IIS), in which case you could use mono. But it seems just plain odd to run .NET on a Linux server. But I digress...

Whatever route you choose to go, I'd highly recommend you leave that Exchange/AD service alone, unless you are a glutton for punishment.