Mail System Properties

Mail system properties

10.1 Introduction

The technology that makes "Rainmail Server" possible requires that your incoming mails be routed through a special mail server. Your "Rainmail Server" will talk to this server to download all your incoming mails. To do this, "Rainmail Server" needs the following information:

IP address of incoming mail server.

Your mailbox name (account name) in this Mail Server.

Password associated with this mailbox.

All these three parameters would have been communicated in the letter you received with "Rainmail Server" package. You need to change these values only when we ask you to do so in a separate letter. This letter will contain the new values for these settings. The following sections explain how to change each one of these values.

10.2 Disabling Email Services

Rainmail Server automatically sends and receives email meant for your organization periodically and whenever some one from your organization connects to the Internet. The frequency and the times at which the Server sends/receives email can be controlled using the configuration program. Rainmail Server, by default, makes use of Email services provided by Carizen to do the above. The incoming mails land up in Carizen Server and are downloaded by Rainmail Server. Similarly, outgoing mails are relayed to Carizen server, which in turn sends it to destination location. There are situations where you would want Rainmail Server to send/receive mails directly. This will be the case if you have a static IP and you are connected to Internet by a reliable, high speed leased line. By disabling Email services (from Carizen) using this option, your server will send/receive mails directly from Internet.

Carizen also provides "Leased Line mail backup" facility by which mails land up in Carizen's server in case your leased line is down. Then you can continue to receive mails by Switching to a dial up or ISDN line, and Enabling email services. Your mails will then be downloaded and be available as usual.

By default, "Rainmail Server" is able to send/receive emails with the outside world. This behavior can be disabled. When this behavior is disabled, no mail is sent or received by "Rainmail Server". It is however possible to still use web based email accounts like "Yahoo.com", "Netscape.net", "123india.com" and "Hotmail.com" to send/receive emails.

To disable/enable email services, bring up the configuration program and select "Disable/Enable Email Services". That will bring up the following screen.

To disable email services, uncheck the "Enable Email Services" check box and press the "Change" button. To enable email services, check the "Enable Email Services" check box and press the "Change" button

10.3 Set as Global/Internal User - RIS Standard

The Rainmail Server is licensed based on the maximum number of users you can create. These users are global users. Rainmail Server allows you to create unlimited number of internal users within the LAN. These users have all the privileges, except for, sending and receiving mails to external domain.To change the status of the user from global to internal or viceversa, bring up the configuration program and select "Set as Global/Internal User". That will bring up the following screen:

Select the user from the Email ID list . Change the user status as internal or global. Press "Set". The successful completion of this operation will be indicated by a dialog.

10.4 Modify POP Account -POP

To realize the concept of email domains, it is important that there is a mail server that is always connected to the Internet that can receive your mails and store till you download it using Rainmail Server.This section helps you to modify POP3 account configuration of existing POP3 users.

To modify POP3 accounts, bring up the configuration program and select "Modify POP Account". That will bring up the following screen.

Select an "EMail Id" from the given list. "Delete Mail from Server " option when checked is used to delete mail from server after downloading it once, if unchecked keeps a copy of the mail in the server. Check " Enable Account " to enable or uncheck to disable it. By default this account is enabled. This option when enabled, allows an user to send and receive mails from the server. Check "Append Domain Name" to append the domain name to the userid. You can enable this if your ISP requires your email to be in the form of "username@domainname.com" to fetch mails. Press "Set" button. Successful completion is intimated by a dialog.

10 .5 Incoming Mail: Changing IP Address

To change IP address of incoming Mail Server, run the configuration program and select "Change Mail Server Address" in the left-hand side. That will bring up the following screen :

Enter the address given in the letter in the "Mail Server" field and press "Change". This value will be used from the next time "Rainmail Server" checks for incoming mails.

10.6 Incoming Mail: Changing Account Name - Catchall, RIS

To change account name of your mailbox in incoming mail server, run the configuration program and select "Change Mail Server Login Name" in the left-hand side. That will bring up the following screen :

Select the domain name for which you want to change the Mail Server Login name from the "Domain Name" Combo Box. Enter the account name specified in the letter in "Mail Server Account" field. Select one of the protocols, either APOP or POP3 as supported by your ISP and press the "Change" button.This value will be used the next time "Rainmail Server" checks for incoming mails.

10.7 Incoming Mail: Changing Account Password - Catchall, RIS

To change account password of your mailbox in incoming mail server, run the configuration program and select "Change Mail Server Login Password" in the left-hand side. That will bring up the following screen :

Enter your old password in the "Present Password" field. Enter the password supplied in the letter twice, once in "Mail Server Password" field and once in "Confirm Password" field. This setting will come into effect the next time "Rainmail Server" downloads your email.

Please note that password must be changed on your incoming mail server too. Otherwise, there will be a password mismatch and you will not be able to download mails. To change password on the mail server, visit http://www.getcloser.net/user.php3

10.8 Change Domainwise Catchall Header - Catchall

"Rainmail Server"configures the "Catch-All" facility provided by your e-mail Service provider so that all e-mail sent to your domain is delivered to the specified account based on the Mail header address.

To change Catch All Header, run the configuration program and select "Change Catch All Header" in the left-hand side. That will bring up the following screen :

Select the domain name for which you want to change "Catch All" header from the "Domain Name" combo box. Enter the Mail header address in the "Mail Header field" and press "Change". Rainmail will be routing the mails based on the specified header address like "To:" or Delivered-To: as this is different for each host. Then these mails will be sorted and sent to the users mailbox locally.

10.9 Change SMTP Mail Server

Find out from all of your Internet Server Providers what their SMTP Server names are and change the SMTP server setting to that Server name. In certain mail clients the SMTP AUTH requires that you check your account before you try to send mail.

To change the IP address of outgoing SMTP Mail Server, run the configuration program and select "Change SMTP Mail Server Address" in the left-hand side. That will bring up the following screen :

Check Enable SMTP Authentication check box for authentication. Enter the account name in "SMTP Account Name " field . This value will be used the next time your Server checks for outgoing mails. Enter the password twice, once in "SMTP Account Password" field and once in "SMTP Confirm Password" field. Press "Change". This setting will come into effect the next time you send your email .

10.10 Adding User POP Accounts

Rainmail lets you create unlimited number of user POP accounts to the list of available users. A POP3 (or just POP) account is an email account. This is where mail will sit until you download/read it and decide to file it, delete it, etc. An user can have multiple POP accounts.

To add multiple POP accounts for each user , bring up the "Rainmail" configuration program, and click on "Add User POP Account" in the left-hand side. That will bring up the following screen:

Here you can retrieve external mails by giving the IP address of the external Mail Server, your username, password of all your e-mail ids. Multiple POP3 accounts can be defined, allowing a single user to fetch mails from a number of Mail Servers.

Delete Mail from Server

This section takes care of deleting mails from the Server. When a mailbox has reached its maximum, additional messages sent to that mailbox will bounce back to the sender. You can resolve this by deleting messages. Checking this option will delete the messages from the Server after downloading it. To avoid deleting mails from Server uncheck "Delete Mail from Server". You can uncheck this option to keep the messages in the Server.

Enable Account

This feature enables users to fetch mails from an external Mail Server. When an account is disabled, user cannot log in to the external mail accounts.

10.11 Modifying User POP Accounts

To modify pop accounts for each user , bring up the "Rainmail" configuration program, and click on "Modify User POP Account" in the left-hand side. That will bring up the following screen:

Change Password

Checking the enable password checkbox will bring the following screen

In the above screen, select the name of the user whose password is to be changed from the "User ID" combo box. Checking the "Change Password" option will display the present password, new password and confirm password fields. Enter the user's current password in the "Present Password" field (leave blank if there is no password). Enter the new password twice (once in "New Password" and another time in "Confirm Password" field). Press "Set". For security reasons we require the password to be at least six (6) characters long and we recommend that it should have at least one special character.

Delete Mail from Server

This section takes care of deleting mails from the Server. When a mailbox has reached its maximum, additional messages sent to that mailbox will bounce back to the sender. You can resolve this by deleting messages. Checking this option will delete the messages from the Server after downloading it. You can uncheck this option to keep the messages in the Server.

Enable Account

This feature enables users to fetch mails from the external Mail Server. When an account is disabled, user cannot log in to the external mail accounts.

10.12 Deleting User POP Accounts

To delete pop accounts for each user , bring up the "Rainmail" configuration program, and click on "Delete User POP Account" in the left-hand side. That will bring up the following screen:

In the above screen, select the name of the user whose Mail Server is to be changed from the "User ID" combo box. Choose the IP address of the external mail server from the combo box , for a particular user and the user account name "User ID" for the particular user will be listed. Press "Delete" to delete the account. Successful completion is indicated by a dialog.

10. 13 Email Parameters: Frequency of Mail Checks

"Rainmail Server", by default is configured to send all mails from your organization and receive all mails for your organization once in four hours. If this is not sufficient for your organization, you can modify this behavior to do this more/less frequently using the configuration program. To accomplish this, open up the configuration program and select "Mail Check Frequency" from the left-hand side. That will bring up the following screen:

In the above screen, select the frequency at which you would like this automatic download/upload to take place and press "Set".

10.14 Sending/Receiving Mails immediately

Normally, "Rainmail Server" automates the task of delivering and receiving mails, using the time interval specified in the configuration program. However, there might be situations when you have to send out or receive a mail immediately. "Rainmail Server" configuration program provides an easy way to do this.

To send/receive mails immediately, bring up the configuration program and choose "Send/Receive Mail Immediately" on the left hand side panel. That will bring up the following screen:

In the above screen, click on the "Send/Receive Mail Now" button. This will start the process of delivering any waiting messages and receiving any messages waiting on the server. There is no harm in using this feature even if mails are being sent/received currently.

10.15 Inter-operating with existing Mail Servers (MS Exchange Server, Lotus Notes, etc.)

With "Rainmail Server", you do not need any other email servers on your network. However, there are cases where there is an existing installation of a local email server like Exchange Server and Lotus Notes and it might be desirable to use "Rainmail Server" in conjunction with these local email servers. This will have the added advantage that end users can continue to work the way they are used to.

This can be accomplished by following three additional, simple steps.

First, we have to forward all incoming mails from "Rainmail Server" to your local email server. In your local email server, specify "Rainmail Server" as relay host. To create an email address, you will have to create accounts on both "Rainmail Server" and your local email server.

To perform the first step, bring up "Rainmail Server" configuration program and select "Forward incoming mails to host" from the left hand side panel. That will bring up the following screen:

Check the "Forward mails to host" check box in the above screen. This will enable the "Host address" edit box. Enter IP address of your local email server in the "Host Address" field and press "Set". From now on, all incoming emails will be forwarded to your local email server for processing.

For information on how to configure your local email server to use "Rainmail Server" as Smart relay host, please contact your email server vendor.

10.16 Specifying Destination for Administrative Emails

"Rainmail Server", during its normal course of operations generates lot of emails. These could be normal output or failure reports. By default, these mails are sent to the user "mailservice". However, they can be forwarded to a single user designated as the System Administrator. This way, that person can receive reports about the status of the system.

To designate an user to receive administrative email, start the configuration program and select "Specify Administrator Email". That will bring up the following screen:

In the above screen, select name of user from the "Select Administrator User" combo box and press "Set". This will make all administrative emails go to the specified user.

10.17 Forwarding User Emails

At times, it might be desirable to forward a local user's mail to external accounts. This could be when an employee is transferred to a different branch or when an employee is travelling away from the office.

"Rainmail Server" provides an easy way of doing this. To forward an user's mail, run the configuration program and select "Forward user mails" from the left hand side panel. That will bring up the following screen

"Rainmail Server" allows you to process your mails in different ways. You may forward your mails to a different mail account. You might want to do this when you are travelling. "Rainmail Server" also allows you to automatically send a reply to all incoming mails. This will be useful for setting "vacation" messages. In addition, you can decide if you want to store a copy of the mails locally.

To forward a user's mail, Select user's name from the "Email ID" field. Enter the mail address where you want to forward your mails in the "Forward To:" field.

To store a copy of incoming mails locally, Select user's name from the "Email ID" field. Select "Keep a Copy in Server". Unselect "Keep a Copy in Server" if you do not want to leave a copy of your mails on the server. Please note that you may have "Keep a Copy in Server" unchecked only if the mails are being forwarded elsewhere. This is done so that a novice user does not lose his mails due to misconfiguration.

To automatically reply to incoming mails with a specified text, Select user's name from the "Email ID" field. Enter the text to reply with in "Send this reply to Sender" field. If you want to include the original subject, you may use "%S" in your contents. Once all the options are entered, they can be set by pressing the "Set" button.

Successful completion of this operation is notified by a dialog. This change will take effect immediately. If you chose to forward, the "Forwarding Email address" edit box will be enabled. You can enter the address to which this user's mail must be forwarded to and press the "Set" button.

It is now possible to receive SMS Alert in your cellular phone whenever you receive messages from your email program. To use this feature, if you choose to receive SMS Alert , select user's name from the "Email ID" field. Then enable "SMS Alert" field . Enter the 10 digit mobile number of the selected Rainmail user in the "Mobile number" field. In this case, for example, the mobile number of the user senthil@carizen.com , 9840075038 is entered. The " Subject" and the "From Address" of the incoming email will be received as SMS Alert.

Once all the options are entered press the "Set" button.

10. 18 Outgoing Mail - Maximum Outgoing Mail Size

Rainmail Server uses your ISP relay mail server to send mails out of your organization. While Rainmail Server itself does not place any limits on the size of mails you can send out, your ISP might have some restrictions. Therefore, it is important that "Rainmail Server" allows you to set a limit on the maximum outgoing mail size.

If this option were not available and say your ISP does not allow you to send more than 5 MB of mails, any mail over that size will stay in the mail queue and block other mails. Novice users also might attach really big files by mistake and it could block your mail queue.

By default, "Rainmail Server" is configured to not allow outgoing mails of size greater than 3MB. To change this limit, enter the new size in Kilo Bytes in the "Mail Size" field and press "Set" button. Successful completion of this operation is indicated by a dialog. The setting takes effect immediately.

10.19 Enable Global Signature

"Rainmail Server" allows you to define global disclaimers and signatures that can be added to every email. The signature is placed below the last entered message text of the email .

To assign global signature, bring up "Rainmail Server" configuration program and select "Enable Global signature" from the left hand side panel. That will bring up the following screen:

To enable global signatures, check the "Enable Global Signature" check box . In the the scrolling text area that appears , enter the signature text that is to be appended to the email of all the users of Rainmail Server and press the "Set" button. Subsequent mails will have signatures appended to the end of the text. To disable global signatures, uncheck the "Enable Global Signature" check box and press the "Set" button.

10.20 Add External Email Address

Rainmail Server allows you to forward all incoming mails for your domain to an internal server (like MS Exchange Server or Lotus Notes). This feature is useful when you have already made an investment (or) if you do not want to migrate your existing users to a new system, because of training costs. When you use "Rainmail Server" in conjunction with an internal email server, all emails to your domain are forwarded to this internal server. This is normally correct, but problems arise when you have email addresses (usually POP boxes) handled not by the internal server, but by an outside server.

In the above case, "Rainmail Server" will forward the email to the internal server. The internal server, in turn, will bounce these emails because it does not handle them. Therefore, it is necessary to instruct Rainmail Server" to handle these email addresses differently (i.e., they should be forwarded to Internet rather than internal server).

This section allows you to instruct "Rainmail Server" to handle certain email addresses typically POP boxes not handled by your internal server) differently. Once this is done, any emails to these addresses are forwarded to Internet rather than internal server. This is only enabled when you are forwarding all your emails to another internal server.

To add an external email address to this list,

Click on "Add External Email Address" on left side of the window. Enter user name part of the email address (without domain name) in the "User Name" field on the right side of the window. Press "Add" Button. Successful completion of this operation is indicated by a dialog.

10.21 Delete External Email Address

Rainmail Server allows you to forward all incoming mails for your domain to an internal server (like MS Exchange Server or Lotus Notes). This feature is useful when you have already made an investment (or) if you do not want to migrate your existing users to a new system, because of training costs.

When you use "Rainmail Server" in conjunction with an internal email server, all emails to your domain are forwarded to this internal server. This is normally correct, but problems arise when you have email addresses (usually POP boxes) handled not by the internal server, but by an outside server.

In the above case, "Rainmail Server" will forward the email to the internal server. The internal server, in turn, will bounce these emails because it does not handle them. Therefore, it is necessary to instruct "Rainmail Server" to handle these email addresses differently (i.e., they should be forwarded to Internet rather than internal server).

This section allows you to instruct "Rainmail Server" to handle certain email addresses (typically POP boxes not handled by your internal server) differently. Once this is done, any emails to these addresses are forwarded to internal server rather than Internet. This is only enabled when you are forwarding all your emails to another internal server.

To delete an external email address to this list, Click on "Delete External Email Address" on left side of the window. Choose the user name from "User Name" combo box. Press "Delete" Button. Successful completion of this operation is indicated by a dialog.

10.22 Add Block Address

"Rainmail Server" allows you to block mails from a particular email address to a particular user belonging to Rainmail Server.You can add multiple address to be blocked to a particular user.

This section allows you to add a new block address to a particular user. To add a new block address, select the email address to whom you want to add a block address and enter the address in "New Block Address" edit box. A list of currently specified blocked addresses is available in the "Blocked Address" combo box for your reference.

Once you type in a new block address , pressing the "Add" button adds the new block address to the selected user belonging to Rainmail Configuration. Successful completion of this operation is indicated by a dialog.

10.23 Delete Blocked Address

Rainmail Server allows you to block mails from a particular email address to a particular user belonging to Rainmail Server.You can add multiple address to be blocked to a particular user.

This section allows you to add a new block address to a particular user. To add a new block address, select the email address to whom you want to add a block address and enter the address in "New Block Address" edit box. A list of currently specified blocked addresses is available in the "Blocked Address" combo box for your reference.

Once you type in a new block address , pressing the "Add" button adds the new block address to the selected user belonging to Rainmail Configuration. Successful completion of this operation is indicated by a dialog.

10.24 Modify User Quota

Rainamil Server allows you to modify an user's home directory disk quota. By default it does not place any limitation on the user's home directory disk space. The user can have "Unlimited" disk space. However an user's disk space can be changed by specifying the limit in MB, based on the policies of the Company. User will receive an email notification if the quota exceeds 80% of the alloted quota. If the disk quota exceeds , user will not be able to send mail, or save messages, but will be able to delete messages so as to lower disk usage below the set disk quota. So it may be necessary to increase the disk quota for a particular user.

Select the user Email ID from the "User Email ID" list box. Select one of the radio buttons, "Unlimited" for unlimited disk space or "Size" for changing user's disk space limit. Selecting the "Size" radio button opens the "Quota" edit box. Enter the the total amount of disk space in the "Quota(MB)" edit box. Press "Change". Successful completion of this operation is indicated by a dialog.

10.25 Delete Mail lock file

"Rainmail Server" downloads and uploads your mails periodically. When mails are being transferred this way, RIS creates a lock file so that a similar operation started after this does not affect this operation. Normally, these lock files are deleted automatically and RIS will continue to function normally. In case of abnormal shutdown or abrupt power failure, these local files might remain in the computer, hindering the mail transfer between RIS and Internet.

In these cases, this section helps you remove such spurious mail lock files. If you suspect that your mail transfer has been affected because of this condition, press the "Delete Mail Lock" button to fix the problem.

This will not affect your current mail transfer progress and will not create new problems if the problem you are experiencing is due to different reasons. Successful completion of this operation will be indicated by a dialog.

10.26 MailQueue-Viewing Maillists

Mail Queue Administration is one of the most important Administrator tools in RainMail Server. It gives the Administrator the ability to see messages and read any message stored on the server in any mailbox or mail queue. Mail Queue Administration is accessed from the Mail Queue Configuration program. RainMail Server places a message in the mail queue, whenever it receives a message.

All the messages currently held in the queue will be displayed in the Mail List. Highlight the message you wish to view in the existing entries in the queue.

Click the View button to see the message contents.

10.27 MailQueue-Deleting Maillists

Highlight the message you wish to delete from the queue in the Mail List.

Click the Delete button to remove the message from the Mail List.

10.28 MailQueue-Refresh Maillists

Rainmail Server connects to the Internet based on the mail check frequency settings, through a modem to send mails that are stored in the mail queue. If you have 100 mails, it is sent one by one and even though the mail is sent, it may still be visible in the queue, press Refresh button to refresh the existing entries in the Mail List panel. Also you have to click the Refresh button if there are new mails in order to see the current status of the Mail List.