[Samba] accessing outlook pst files w/ samba

[Gregory Hosler]

Hi,

I'm in the process of trying to convince my organization to move from an
exchange server, to a samba solution, while retaining their original windows
environments, including Outlook clients.

I thought I had all my issues covered, and suddenly I'm facing a show stopper.

it turns out that a lot of my users "documentation" has been stored on "public
folders" on the former exchange server, in "pst" format.

The clients are all Outlook clients.

I did some investigation on pst files on a samba share.

If I move the "pst" files to a linux smb share, then the pst file can be
accessed *BUT* only by one user at a time. I am told that in the windows
exchange environment, multiple users could open up a pst folder on the exchange
server simultaneously. (never having been an outlook user, I'm unfamiliar w/
this particular aspect of windows).

from a bit googling, it seems that "pst" files are essentially "mailbox
databases", which can include things in addition to mails.

I have also seen some solutions (for a full client conversion from windows),
that involved creation of an imap folder, and then dragging the pst to the imap
folder, letting windows convert from one folder to the other, but the issue I'm
facing here is that it will still be the case that more than one user will want
to access these folder(s) concurrently. I guess (not sure, haven't tried) I can
share an imap mailbox with more than one concurrent user, but is this really
the best solution ? (note that the client will remain as a windows outlook
client!)

I rather suspect that this issue has likely come up before, but as I say, I've
never user outlook before, and am totally unfamiliar w/ an exchange server, so
I'm kind of in the dark about what it is that I'm looking for.

I'll be quite grateful for any tips/hints, pointers, urls, even into the
archives (I've d/l'ed the samba archives, but it is huge, and I don't really
know what it is I am looking for :(

thanks in advance, and best regards,

-Greg Hosler

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E-Mail: Gregory Hosler <gregory.hosler at accessgate.com.sg>
Date: 20-Feb-03
Time: 13:07:10

  If each of us have one object, and we exchange them,
     then each of us still has one object.
  If each of us have one idea,   and we exchange them,
     then each of us now has two ideas.

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