[BlueOnyx:06275] Re: Help with webmail predicament: moving web to different server, keeping email on existing

[Chuck Tetlow]

> 
> I've been giving this a bit more thought. Our DNS MX record points to 
> nomealaska.org and this is working. Our new website will be 
> www.nomealaska.org - and my A record will point to that new ip address. 
> 
> I've created an A record of webmail.nomealaska.org pointing to our email 
> server's ip address. Can I have webmail users access their mail by going 
> to https://webmail.nomealaska.org instead of having our new hosting 
> company create a redirect on the new website from 
> www.nomealaska.org/webmail ? 
>

Yes - we do that in a number of cases. 

Companies that want to host their own website, or have some specific MS requirement keep their website elsewhere.  We host their e-mail and they use webmail using the name "mail.domain.tld/webmail". 

The only think you must be sure to configure - make sure the BX server site uses a different name than "www" in the site configuration.  If you leave it "www", each time a person hits the name webmail - the DNS will correctly point them to your box.  But the BX will automatically redirect to www - and they'll be directed to the off-site box.  Its a vicious loop that is frustrating and keeps them from using webmail.  So make sure the site is configured with the name "mail" or "webmail" in the site set up configuration (we use mail).  Then the DNS simply points that name (mail or webmail) to your BX site IP.

> I see in /etc/httpd/conf.d/squirrelmail.conf there is an Alias field 
> that now has "/webmail  /usr/share/squirrelmail". Can that be changed to 
> "webmail/   /usr/share/squirrelmail" assuming the server remains named 
> nomealaska.org with an alias of webmail.nomealaska.org? Or is this 
> possible and if so, how to do it? 
> 
> Do I need to install a new SSL certificate for 
> https://webmail.nomealaska.org even though it would be an alias of 
> existing nomealaska.org? 
>

I'm not a expert on certificates - but I believe that a certificate is uniquely tied to a name, not simply the domain. 

So if the site's name changes from www.domain.tld to webmail.domain.tld - you will need a new certificate.  If you leave the old certificate on the box when you change the site name - I think your users will get those "name doesn't match the certificate" security warnings.

Good luck and let us know which way you go!

Chuck

 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.blueonyx.it/pipermail/blueonyx/attachments/20110106/9a54e076/attachment.html>