The “Mail Services” link on the left navigation will display the “Add” section by default. In this section, users can add, modify or delete email settings and
configurations. Figure 8-1 below shows the default view, and the links that will be displayed at this main “Mail Services” menu.
Figure 8-1
Add Email Accounts
This feature will allow users to add email boxes or POP accounts. This means that the user will have a mailbox on the server where email will be stored. User’s can use web based email, or use email clients such as Outlook or Outlook Express to
download the email they receive.
Figure 8-2 below shows the user inputs. They are as follows:
• Username – This is the name of the email user that is to be created. This should be between 3 and 8 characters. Spaces are not acceptable.
• Domain Name – This field is used to attach a specific domain name with the user name. All domain names on the virtual server are listed in the drop down menu. If a user does not see a domain name listed in the drop down menu, they should consult the Add Virtual Host section of this user’s guide, and confirm it has been added.
• Password – The user should ensure the password is between 6 and 8 characters, and should include both letters (upper and lower case) and numbers.
• Confirm Password – This is used to confirm that the password is correct and the same as the above password.
• FTP enabled? – This is a yes or no selection to allow this user to also have FTP access to the server.
• FTP Home Directory – This should be the path from the root of the virtual server, down to the directory that the user should have access to. Note that the FTP user will not have access to anything above the directory a user inputs here. An example of a proper home directory would be
/www/htdocs/test where the user would only have FTP access to the test directory.
Figure 8-2
Figure 8-3 below shows an error message that can often be displayed. The user name selected (‘test’) has already been created. The error states that it was created as an email alias, and because of this, the user can’t create an email alias and an email account (POP account) with the same name. The SMT will provide the user with the ability to remove the email alias, and add the email POP account or choose another POP account username.
Figure 8-3
Figure 8-4 below shows the success message for the addition of a POP Email account.
Add Mail List
This feature gives users the ability to add an email alias, which emails a group of individuals. For instance, the example in figure 8-5 below is set to show an example of the email address [email protected] to go to all the individuals that work in an office.
Figure 8-5
Why would I need to know this? This is beneficial because employees who work in the same department or for a small company can easily share information with one email address.
Add Email Addresses to a Mail List
Once the Mail List has been created (using OfficeWideEmail in this case), the user can add email addresses to the list. Each user added to the list will have to have an email address and a Real Name. Figure 8-6 below shows the form used to add email addresses to the existing Mail List. Figure 8-7 shows what the form looks like after the first user has been added.
Figure 8-7
Display List of Email Addresses in a Mail List
The “Display List” button that appears above in Figure 8-7 will display the email address and name of each individual on the Mail List, as witnessed in Figure 8-8 below.
Figure 8-8
Remove Email Address to a Mail List
To remove an email address, simply select if from the “Current Addresses” list in the drop down menu. Click the “Remove Address” button and the email address will be removed. Figure 8-9 and 8-10 below show the procedure for removing the user “Bob” from the OfficeWideEmail Mail List.
Setup Email Forwarding
In this section, users will have the ability to create email forwarding accounts. An email forward, or email alias is in essence a fake name or email address that points to a real email address, either on or off the server. There are two types of email forwards, which are outlined below.
Example 1:
[email protected] is forwarded to [email protected], where bob is a POP Email account. POP email accounts are the same as the “Email Accounts” talked about in a previous section of this User’s Guide.
Example 2:
[email protected] is forwarded to [email protected], and this address is outside of AIT’s network.
To add an Email Forward of either type listed above, complete the form as displayed in Figure 8-11 below. In this example, the Email Forward is for “webmaster”. The domain name the Email Forward is for is selected from the drop down menu. The Alias Type tells the SMT whether to setup the alias like the Example 1 above, or to set it up like Example 2.
Figure 8-11
If POP3 mail account is selected, then the user will select the POP3 email account in the Alias To input box, as Figure 8-12 shows.
Figure 8-12
If External email account is selected, then the user will enter an email address in the Alias To input box, as Figure 8-13 shows.
Figure 8-13 IMPORTANT NOTE
Email Forwarding or aliasing can be done by domain, although all domains are hosted on 1 IP address. This means that if a user has an account that allows for multiple domain names to be hosted on the account, the user can have two distinct and separate email addresses. An example of this is listed below
Example 1:
[email protected] is a POP3 email account
[email protected] is an Email Forward and sends to the POP3 account named ‘joe’.
Example 2:
[email protected] is an Email Forward.
[email protected] is an Email Forward and sends to the POP3 account named ‘joe’.
This ensures that each domain can have the same username portion of the email address, but have separate and distinct email addresses.
Configure Email Responder
The Email Responder, commonly referred to as the Auto Responder, is an email configuration that will automatically reply to email with a specific, preformatted message when a user emails a specific address.
As shown in Figure 8-14 below, the form that is used to configure the Email
Responder has many different fields. Each is detailed below, with an explanation of the information that goes into each field.
Figure 8-14
• User Name: This is just the username portion of the email address that will be used for the auto responder. For example, if the user wants people who email [email protected] to get an auto response with a preformatted message, then the field would be completed with the word ‘sales’.
• Forward Email to: This field is the email address that the email inquiry will be forwarded to. For example, if someone emails [email protected], that email will end up at the address that the user inputs. In this example, we’ve used [email protected].
• Reply Address: This field is the email address, or from address, that will be put on the reply to the person who sent the original email. For example, if someone emails [email protected], and receives the auto response, this is the email address it will be from.
• File Name: The preformatted message that is created will be a file on the server. This file will be created in the /usr/local/etc/responses directory. The file name for the auto response will be the file name that the user enters into this field. In the example above, the file name is sales.txt. This file can be edited in a simple text document.
• Email Subject: This field contains the subject line of the email that the sender will receive when they receive the auto response. For example, This is the sales information you requested.
Manage (Mail Services)
This section manages the basic email functions. Any addition function in the SMT for email can be managed in this section. Figure 8-15 below shows the default screen that appears under Manage Mail Services.
Manage Email Accounts
This section manages the POP (POP3) or mailboxes that have been added to the server. In the drop down menu, the account holder can select a username that has been created, and the Real Name and Mailbox Size will be displayed.
Clear Mail
In figure 8-16 below, you can see that the user ‘pop’ has a mailbox size of around 10KB. To clear the email out of that account without downloading it to a local computer, a user can select the “Clear Mail” button and delete the email.
Figure 8-16
Modify User
If the user selects the “Modify User” button, then it will display the form in Figure 8- 17 below. This form gives users the ability to change a Password, Real Name, Home Directory (specifically for FTP, not for POP email) and the Allowed
Services, which can be POP email only, FTP only, or both POP and FTP access. Note that if providing FTP access to a user, be sure to limit their access. Normal web root or document root directories should always start with the prefix /www/htdocs. Any modifications to this path could give unauthorized users access to your website via FTP.
Figure 8-17
Delete User
Figure 8-19 below shows the results of a deletion of a user. The Results are displayed at the bottom of the page.
Figure 8-19
Manage Mail Lists
For more information on Mail Lists, see the section for Adding Mail Lists above.
Delete Mail Lists
To delete a Mail List, click on the mail list under the Existing Mail Lists heading, as seen below in Figure 8-20.
Figure 8-20
Once displayed, there will be a link that says “Delete This Mail List”. To delete the entire list, click on this link (See Figure 8-21 below). Remember, that this will delete any record of the list. There is no restore feature; a deleted list will have to be completely recreated.
Manage Email Forwarding
In this section, users can configure the default mail drop for a domain, or manage Email Forwards or Email Aliases that they have setup. Figure 8-22 shows the two options that users will have.
Figure 8-22
Configure Default Mail Drop
This section is great for users who want to have all email for a domain received by someone in an organization. For instance, assume the user has email accounts for the following 3 employees, and each of them are POP email accounts:
• Bob • Joe • Anne
After a year, Joe leaves the organization. The POP account for Joe may be removed, but an email Forward or Alias may not be set in place for Joe. If the default email drop is configured to send any email account that does not exist to Bob, then email sent to Joe will be received by Bob. In fact, email sent to addresses that don’t or have never existed will get to Bob as well.
To use this feature, click the Configure Default Mail Drop from the screen shown in Figure 8-22 above. The form listed in Figure 8-23 will display. The following fields are required to complete the default mail drop configuration.
• Alias Name: The word DEFAULT is already assumed, as this is configuring the default mail drop.
• Domain Name: This is the domain name for the default email drop. Default email drops can be setup for each domain name to go to different email addresses.
Figure 8-23
• Alias Type: The user can select POP3 account, which is a mail box account on the server in which case a drop down menu will appear with all POP email accounts in it (Figure 8-24), or External mail account, which can be an email address that is off of the user’s account (Figure 8-25).
Figure 8-24
Upon completion of the action, the Result will display at the bottom of the screen, as seen in Figure 8-26.
Figure 8-26
View Aliases
This option allows users to view the Email Forwards or Email Aliases already in place. Once the View Aliases link is clicked, the user will see Figure 8-27.
Figure 8-27
The user should click the “View Aliases” button, and the results will be displayed at the bottom of the page in the Results table shown in Figure 8-28.
Figure 8-28
To remove an Email Forward or Alias, simply click on an alias. Figure 8-29 below shows the results displayed after a Forward is removed.
Figure 8-29
Reset Anti-Relay Data File
This feature ties directly to AIT’s relay ruleset. AIT’s system of POP and SMTP services follows procedures so that a user’s POP or SMTP server cannot be exploited and used to send Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE, otherwise known as spam). AIT’s SMTP servers are setup to give a Relaying Denied error, which is a global error that can be given by any SMTP server, or a dial up access provider. If a user receives a Relaying Denied message when attempting to send email, ensure that the user has checked their email (typically called popping for mail) before attempting to send email. If a user does this, the server will record the IP address/location where the user is dialed up FROM. This lets the server know that you are a valid user and you have authenticated with a valid username and password from the POP server.
This IP address is written into /etc/mail/relay-domains file on the Virtual Server. When you attempt to send email, the SMTP server will view the contents of this file, and find the IP address that the user is connected to and verify that this IP is the same one that is being used to send email. If so, the server will send email. If not, the sender will receive a relaying denied error.
Each night at midnight eastern time, the /etc/mail/relay-domains file is set back to nothing, or zero’ed out. The feature of resetting this file manually during the day ensures that the contents of this file are cleared.
Figure 8-30
Remove Auto Responders
Removing an auto responder or email responder is as simple as inputting the username portion of the email address in the form, and clicking the remove button.
Spam Prevention Tool
This tool allows users to block email from unwanted addresses. The address input box, shown in Figure 8-31, can contain a variety of entries specifying whose email the user wishes to refuse, including the following:
• User Address: [email protected]
• Host or Domain Name: host01.spam.com OR spam.com • IP Address: 123.123.123.123
Figure 8-31
Upon addition of an email address, IP address or host name, the results will display, as seen in Figure 8-32 below.