IMail Server 8.01 User's Guide

Features

In addition to sending and receiving mail, IMail Server has a number of robust features.

User Registration and Maintenance

IMail Server supports an unlimited number of user mailboxes. Users must be registered in order to have a local mailbox and to allow remote POP3, IMAP4, or web clients to connect to the server to retrieve mail from those mailboxes.

IMail Server user accounts can be based on an external database. This capability uses the ODBC method, but can be extended to include up to ten different methods.

Administrators can add, delete, and manage user accounts, create aliases, and easily update Whois, and LDAP information.

Several command line utilities can be used to add or delete large numbers of users from text files, delete old messages in a user account, and send a message to all users on a virtual host or on the entire server.

For more information, see "Chapter 3: User Mail Accounts" and "Appendix C. Command Line Applications".

Mailing List Creation and Maintenance

IMail Server can create and maintain list-server (automated) mailing lists; these can be either public or private. When a list-server mailing list receives mail, it re-sends the mail to all subscribers on the list; re-sent mail can be sent one message at a time, or it can be accumulated for periodic sending ("digest mode"). For more information, see "Chapter 17: List-Server Mailing Lists"..

Mail Forwarding

You can have IMail Server forward new mail for a particular user to another address. For more information, see "Forwarding Mail to Another User Account"..

Vacation Support

If a user cannot answer mail due to vacation or other absence, IMail Server can automatically send one notice to each person who sends mail to that user. This allows people to send many messages to someone on vacation without being flooded with notices that the recipient is away. For more information, see "Setting Up a Vacation Message"..

Finger "Plan" Support

The Finger protocol is a common Internet tool that allows remote users to see information about users registered on a system. This includes the full name of the specified user, his or her complete e-mail address, and a "Plan" file provided by the user that contains any additional information the user wishes to provide in response to Finger requests. For more information, see "Chapter 15: Finger Server"..

Mail Delivery Rules

You can create delivery rules to search for particular text patterns in the content of a particular part of a message (To, From, Sender, Subject, entire header, or message body) and re-route the message based on the contents. You can apply delivery rules for a mail host, a list-server mailing list, or for individual users. For more information, see "Setting Up Delivery Rules"..

Automated Mail Accounts (Info Manager)

The Info Manager feature lets you set up an automated response: when mail is received for a user that has enabled the Info Manager, a prepared message is automatically sent back to the sender.

The Info Manager also lets you set up special mail accounts with unique responses for each sub-area. For example, you could create an info user account for your organization. When someone sends mail to the info account, the system can return a response that describes the sub-areas of the info account, such as sales or classes.

Senders can then send a message to info-sales and receive back a message related to sales, or to info-classes and receive back a message about classes you offer. For more information, see "Using the Info Manager"..

Multiple Host (Domain) Support

If you want to receive mail for more than one e-mail host on the same Windows NT/2000 system, you can set up multiple virtual hosts. For example, if your mail server provides mail service for your local e-mail host, mail.petra.com, and you also want it to provide mail service for another e-mail host, mail.acme.com, you can create a virtual host for mail.acme.com. For more information, see "Chapter 2: Configuration"..

Privacy-Enhanced POP Support

Post Office Protocol Version 3 (POP3) is the most common protocol used by mail clients for retrieving messages from a mail server. The user ID and password are encoded so that they cannot be read by standard text editors. However, the encoding is not complex, and this feature should not be confused with security. For more information, see "Chapter 7: POP3 Server"..

Forwarding of Mail to a Beeper or Pager

IMail Server can route inbound mail to any external program such as preconfigured pager or beeper addresses, or any other application. For more information, see "Types of Aliases"..

Unknown Local User Processing

IMail Server can perform special processing of mail that is incorrectly-addressed or addressed to users that don't exist on the local host. This is accomplished through a special alias, nobody, which can send mail to a specified program or another user's mailbox. For more information, see "Processing Mail to Users that Don't Exist"..

Anti-Spam Features

IMail Server's built-in messaging controls prevent spammers from using IMail Server as a relay or gateway. You can set up the server to accept only mail that originates from or is destined for local users. (you define the systems or addresses to consider as local.) In addition, you can block incoming messages from IP addresses that have been a source of spam. For more information, see "Chapter 6: SMTP Security"..

Anti-spam features also allow you to catch any spam messages that are sent to you or your users by examining the content of the messages and comparing their IP addresses against configurable black lists. For more information see "Chapter 18: Anti-Spam Features".

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