The good people at Kerio have been kind enough to distribute their mail server software bundled into a CentOS installation on a Virtual Machine. You can just snap it into Fusion very easily, if you want to take the Kerio Mail Server (KMS) for a ride. I can’t say I would recommend running it full time in Fusion on Mac hardware though, you might be better served installing the package installer that Kerio distributes in that case..
There is a second nice thing about the VM in that it does most of the work in setting up Kerio for you. When you download and run the VM, it immediately fires up into a wizard
At this step, you can really just type yes to get started going through the interactive shell script. Next, you’ll be asked to read and accept the EULA for KMS, read it, use the down arrow (or space bar) to scroll down the screen and type yes to accept the agreement (assuming you accept it).
Now KMS will install all the various parts and components. When it’s done and prompts you, hit enter to start the funny LILO looking configuration wizard (at this point it’s installed, we’re just going to config it). At the Welcome screen, click Next and you will find yourself at the Mail Hostname and Internet Domain screen. Here, type the domain that you’ll be accepting mail for (eg – krypted.com) and the name of the host that will accept mail for that domain. When you’re satisfied with your settings, tab to the Next button and press enter.
Next, you will be prompted to configure an administrative account, here enter the username and password you’d like to use to log into either the web administration console or the GUI administration console to access this server. When you are satisfied with your selections, select Next.
Next, select where Kerio will store its data. You can leave it at a default, but Kerio makes it easy by putting this into the configuration wizard to use your iSCSI SAN or some other path outside of the VM. This data can then be interchangeable with a Kerio install on, let’s say Mac OS X. When you have the path just as you’d like it, hit Finish.
Next, the KMS documentation will fire up in Firefox on your VM. Go ahead and type http://127.0.0.1/ into a new browser window and verify that the webmail screen opens up. Now would also be a good time for you to test localhost mail flow by sending a message to the server admin account you created earlier.
You should also fire up the Kerio Administration Console, from the CentOS desktop. Once you authenticate you can use the Kerio Administration Console to perform most of the standard administrative tasks. Since we’re using a trial in this demo, the most important might be finding the expiration date of the trial. To find this, simply click on Kerio Mail Server at the root level of the configuration screens. Here, you can also register your software if you have a serial number.
You can, and should, also check the logs, configure message hygiene and setup any required users before you go further… Anyway, more on Kerio later (like AD/OD integration). But this quick tutorial should have you serving mail, sharing mailboxes, contacts and calendars and in general collaborating in 10 minutes or less (minus the download of course) – just think of that next time you’re pulling an all-nighter with Exchange 2007…