Suitability for Hosting Environment

[XN-Matt]

I've been playing with PMG this afternoon and whilst I like the idea and clustered setup of the platform, i'm not too sure if this is suitable for a hosting environment (many servers, users between them).

The settings appear to be fairly global with no ability to add a domain and have specific settings for that i.e such as encrypted email attachments which is a global setting and not domain levels.

Also users created seem to be global and no ability to limit them to only say their domain.

I have read a few threads elsewhere with people stating they want to replace things like Spam Experts, or use in their environment, so I am unsure if I am simply missing a setting to allow per domain controls or if it just does not exist.

 

[Stoiko Ivanov]

You can get quite a bit of flexibility by using the rule system - just add a to object matching a domain to a rule - and it only matches for this domain.

some settings (filtering encrypted archives for example) are global (because the antivirus engine would need to be reloaded for each change of this setting

Also users created seem to be global and no ability to limit them to only say their domain.

Which users do you need to create for PMG? - the end-users don't need an account on the system.


I hope this helps!

 

[XN-Matt]

I did consider that although I think it would get quite and overly complex.

Users would want to change their own settings, which they can do right now, so removing that would cause an increase in queries for us to do things manually.

We also use S/E and things like blocking protected archives can be done on a per-domain basis there so that could be a stumbling block on its own.

Of course, for some settings, we could code in with the API and create our own interface but not sure on how plausible that would be either.

 

[Stoiko Ivanov]

Users would want to change their own settings, which they can do right now, so removing that would cause an increase in queries for us to do things manually.

PMG does assume that it's managed by a few admins - users only have a very limited access (they can white/blacklist quarantined mail so that it gets delivered/dropped respectively - but that's about it)

the permission system is not laid out to provide permissions per domain.

 

[XN-Matt]

Thanks for confirming that.

It would be nice if you could tie entries like white lists, rules and so on to domain - so when the domain is deleted, they are too to prevent domains being removed and things being left in the system for non-existent names,

 

[heutger]

Thanks for confirming that.

It would be nice if you could tie entries like white lists, rules and so on to domain - so when the domain is deleted, they are too to prevent domains being removed and things being left in the system for non-existent names,

Beside for opening a feature request for having PMG been able to be multi-tenant, maybe you could install separate instances per customer?

 

[XN-Matt]

Beside for opening a feature request for having PMG been able to be multi-tenant, maybe you could install separate instances per customer?

Nope, these would be for shared/reseller hosting customers. So one install per customer would be unworkable.

 

[heutger]

Nope, these would be for shared/reseller hosting customers. So one install per customer would be unworkable.

Ah, ok. But aren't such customers typical the ones, which really won't use the/a GUI and adjust anything by themselves?

 

[XN-Matt]

We'd love that to be true but it isn't. Over 60% of our customers administer/play with their settings on a regular basis.