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Working with User Mail Accounts

Each user has a user mail account. When you select a user name in the left panel, you see user properties on the right.

Adding User Mail Accounts

If a mail host uses either the IMail Server database or an external database, you can add user mail accounts using IMail Server. (However, if the host uses the Windows NT Database, you cannot add or delete accounts using IMail Server; you can only add and delete users using the Windows NT User Manager.)

To add users one at a time (assuming that Use Wizards on the Tools menu is turned off):

  1. In the left panel, expand the "localhost" and mail host folders and select the "Users" folder.
  2. In the right panel, click Add User.
  3. In the "New User" dialog box, enter the User ID and click OK. (A User ID must be between 3 and 30 characters. It must consist of digits and letters only, and cannot contain spaces. )

Note: The user ID can represent a special mail account that doesn't belong to a particular user, but accepts routine mail requests for general information. For ideas on how to use such an account, see "Using the Info Manager".

  1. Make sure the user's ID is selected in the left panel, and that the General tab is visible on the right.
  2. Enter the user's First Name and Last Name.
  3. In the Password box, enter a Password and confirm it. The password must be between 3 and 30 characters.
  4. (Optional) Enter the user's Organization, Department, Address, City, State/Province, Postal Code, Country, and Telephone number.
  5. In the Reply To box, you can enter an a different e-mail address if you want replies to go to a different address. This box can be used to enter an e-mail address that omits the computer name, if you are sure the rest of the address is a fully-qualified domain name. For example, if the complete e-mail address is duckie@mail.willow.com, you can enter duckie@willow.com.

Note: This setting is for Web Messaging only.

  1. If you want to automatically forward this user's mail to another user account, enter a complete mail address, in the Forward box. To forward mail and keep a copy in this user's account, precede the forwarding address by a period and a comma, for example, .,cecil@flores.com. Separate multiple addresses with commas. For more information, see "Forwarding Mail to Another User Account".

    You can also enter a beeper or pager alias here to activate a beeper or pager when the user receives mail. For more information, see "Chapter 18: Sending Mail to a Pager or Beeper".

  2. Set the following advanced options:

    Turn on User cannot change password if you do not want the user to change their password from the portable utilities or older Eudora or NuPop mail client. For more information, see "Appendix D. Portable Utilities" and "Chapter 6: IMail Web Messaging".

    • Turn on Account Access Disabled to prohibit the user from accessing the account. This allows you disable the account without changing the user's password or removing him from the system. This is used mainly when the host is based on the Windows NT database and not everyone in that database is supposed to have access to e-mail.
    • Turn on Hide from information services to prevent the distribution of any information about the user through Finger, Whois, or LDAP (if you have any of those servers running).
    • Turn on User can't modify LDAP attributes to prohibit the user from modifying their LDAP attributes (name, address, organization, etc.).
    • Turn on Allow Web access to allow this user to access his/her account via the Web Remote Administration utility (provided the utility is configured) as well as Web Messaging and Web Calendaring.
    • Turn on Host administrator if you want this user to add, modify, or delete users or aliases (except program aliases) on this mail host. To allow use of the web utilities to administer hosts, Allow Web Access must also be selected.
    • Turn on List administrator if you want this user to add, modify, or delete list-server mailing lists.
    • Turn on IMail system administrator to allow this user all IMail functions, including the creation and administration of virtual hosts. In order for the system administrator to use the web interfaces for administration, Allow Web Access must also be selected.
    • Suspend User Account will automatically become enabled if a user's web access becomes suspended. If you wish to re-enable web access for the user, deselect the Suspend User Account checkbox.

Note: You cannot suspend a user account by enabling the Suspend User Account option. If you wish to suspend a user account, then select Account Access Disabled.

  1. Click the Apply button.

The user ID is added to the list of registered users for the host. The user can now receive mail through IMail Server at the specified host. For example, if you added the user fred to the virtual host petra.com, the user can now receive mail addressed to fred@petra.com.

You can now set up special processing for this user; the options are described in the following sections:

Importing NT Users

If a host uses the IMail database for user mail accounts, you can import users from the NT database to add them to the IMail database. When you do this, the imported users are not linked to the Windows NT database and the NT passwords are not imported.

Imported Windows NT users have the same user IDs as in the NT database, but each is given a default password of password. However, by default, IMail won't accept user names with the ampersand (&). If any user names have an ampersand character, see "Allowing Ampersand in Windows NT User Names".

To import NT users:

  1. In the left panel, expand the mail host and select the "Users" folder.
  2. In the right panel, click Import NT Users. You see a dialog box that lists the users in the Windows NT database.
  3. Do one of the following:
    • To add user and passwords one at a time, select a user, enter a password, and click Add Selected Users. Repeat for each user you want to add.
    • To add a number of users at one time with the same initial password, select the users you want to add, set the initial password for all the selected users, and then click Add Selected Users. The password must be between 3 and 30 characters.
  4. When you are finished importing users, click Exit.

Deleting a User Mail Account

To delete a user mail account:

  1. In the left panel, expand the mail host and "Users" folders, and then select the user name.

    To select multiple users for deletion, you can select the check boxes next to the name of each user you want to delete.

  2. In the left panel, right-click to display the pop-up menu, and then select Delete.

Finding Orphan Mail Accounts

When you delete a user, the user's icon no longer appears in the left panel of IMail Administrator, but the user's directory may still remain on the IMail system. This is called an "orphan mail account."

To find orphans and delete their directories from the system:

  1. In the left panel, expand the host name, and then select the "Users" folder.
  2. Click the Find Orphans button. The Orphans dialog box lists any orphan user mail accounts.

    To delete an orphan's directory and messages, select a user name, and then click Delete. To delete all orphan directories, click Delete All.

  3. Click Close to close the dialog box.

Setting Defaults for New Users

In IMail Administrator, you can set the defaults to be used by all new user mail accounts. To set default properties for new users, expand the host name and select the "Users" folder. The default user properties appear in the right panel.

These settings will be used by all mail accounts subsequently created for the current host. The only exception is the "set reply to" setting. This setting applies to existing accounts only. All new user accounts will be set to the Official Hostname of the domain.

The Maximum Mailbox Size and Maximum Messages settings are identical to the settings on the General tab of mail host properties. If you change them in one of these two places, the changes are reflected in the other. (These settings appear twice for your convenience.)

Note: It may be necessary to close and re-open IMail Administrator in order to see your changes.

Note: To change the global settings for existing users, you must use the Global User Changes button. For more information, see "Global Settings for Existing Users".


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