On Aug 7, 2013, at 16:32, John Allen <j...@klam.ca> wrote: >>>> Is there any particular reason you need to accept messages 32 GB in size? >>>> >>> Yes. We support a business that designs and manufactures packaging and >>> displays. The sort of thing you might see in the aisle of a supermarket or >>> store selling gum, personal care products. The graphics, art work and >>> design of these need to be sent to the people involved. We have looked into >>> using services like Dropbox but the problem with all of these is copyright. >>> Our customers legal eagles have advise against such services as they may >>> compromise their copyright on anything stored on such services. >>> >>> OT: It is the same advice and reasoning they gave against using public >>> cloud services, some of whose terms of service essentially strip the user >>> of all copyright ownership. >> And they are regularly sending you files, via e-mail, up to 32 GB in >> size? Attachments that are larger than, say, 1 GB? Does the sending >> mail server allow attachments that big in outgoing mail? Does your >> queue directory reside on a partition that has that much room? >> >> When have you last grepped through your logs to look at the actual >> sizes of the messages that are coming in? What is the largest message >> size you have received in, say, the last four weeks? >> >> I find it all a wee bit hard to believe. You see, we also support >> similar businesses, and have for many years. For large files, they are >> uploaded over SFTP, and downloaded via same, or HTTP. And increasingly, >> they are using WeTransfer for this. Check their terms, several of our >> clients have abandoned their local file transfer setups for it. >> >> But please, stop abusing e-mail for this. It's insane, and a disaster >> waiting to happen. > > We have already setup a webdav system for saving large attachments, the in > house users are supposed to use this for internal mail. > This still leaves the problem of contractors and suppliers. The problem here > is how to isolate them from each other and the whole from the outsider.
It is a solved problem, has been for years. For example, a SFTP or FTPS server; contractors and suppliers each get their own login and are locked into their home directory. They only see their own files, no one else's. Or you use one of the several options out there in terms of web based project management and whatnot, such as activeCollab, or one of the suggestions made here on the list. Each user only has access to relevant projects, and you have the advantage of storing file metadata such as description, comments, versioning and so on. And at the very least, review your logs for the actual sizes of incoming messages, and see what usage dictates. I have a hunch it is going to be much lower than your current limit. Mvg, Joni
