Administration

POP/SMTP Connectors Tab

Purpose

The connectors tab configures all of your inbound and outbond internet links and methods of doing so.

POP Collection

To collect e-mail from the internet or from another mail system that uses the POP mailbox protocol, configure this section of the POP/SMTP Connectors tab.

To add a new POP collector, press 'Add' and enter the details of the POP host.

Max inbound message size

Use this option to specify the largest message you will allow i-Mail to retrieve from your ISP. Oversize mail is left at the ISP if 'Delete from host' is not specified.

Delete from host

If a message exceeds the maximum specified download size, check this option to have the header downloaded and sent to the intended recipient. Once the truncated message has been delivered it is removed from the ISP mailbox.

Remove mail after downloading

Select this option to delete mail from the ISP mailbox after downloading is complete. You may wish to leave mail in some mailboxes to facilitate remote users downloading mail either from home or at remote locations.

Use LAST command

Select this option if you only want messages from the POP box that have not already been downloaded. This option is normally used in leiu of a POP servers ability to provide the UIDL command. Check with your ISP if you need to leave mail on the server which commands they support and how they think you should implement your mail retrieval scenario.

Obtain recipients from message headers

Use this option to scan message headers and distribute mail to individual mail boxes. This option is used when you own an internet domain name and have all of your mail forwarded for the domain to a single POP account at your ISP.

Put mail into this users mailbox

This feature allows downloading of mail from the internet and redirection directly to a single mail account in i-Mail.

Use this option when your internet mail name is assigned at the ISP domain e.g. ‘fred@isp.com’.

Also use this option to download mail for personal or, possibly, previous internet accounts to a specified recipient in conjunction with your main message collection.

Forward mail to this address

Use this feature to forward all mail collected from a POP box to any remote recipient. Specify the recipients complete internet address.

Redirect

This allows mail to be immediately sent on to another mail server with a specified from and to address. Redirection is primarily used to send messages to another SMTP based server for further processing such as virus scanning. See the virus scanner integration page for more details on this.

Redirect to server

This is the IP address or DNS name of the server which is to receive the message

Mail from

The recipient of any message that fails to be delivered to the remote system. This should be the actual e-mail address of the local system administrator.

Rcpt to

The recipient of the message. If this is being used with products that will be returning mail into i-Mail, such as a virus scanning server, then the Rcpt to should be the i-Mail user that has been configured in the SMTP to spool settings.

Redirection Failure

Use this to determine the action to take when sending to the remote system fails. Failure may occur for any number of reasons such as the remote system being turned off, no longer connected to the network or it may have crashed. Where mail would otherwise be returned to the message spooler, such as antivirus integration, then you may elect that the mail be delivered anyway by putting the message in the spooler for parsing. If the mail must get to the remote system then it should be left in the mailbox for the next download session.

SMTP Connection

This section configures your outgoing internet mail. Unless otherwise instructed you should specify the destination host for all outbound e-mail. This is commonly the SMTP host of your ISP. Only use IP connection mode if you understand how TCP/IP works and then only if required.

Sending mail directly to destination host actually tries to find the recipient of each individual outgoing mail message. If it cannot be sent the mail transmission will fail. This option should only be used by knowledgeable e-mail administrators when required.

SMTP Auth

If you are using an ISP that requires SMTP authentication, enter the parameters that they provide in this section.

Max outbound message size

Use this option to specify the maximum message size you want i-Mail to allow to be sent to the internet.

Max inbound message size

Use this option to specify the maximum message size that i-Mail will accept from a client.

Exceptions

Press this button to specify workstations by IP address that require a different message size quota.

Miscellaneous

‘Pre-Ping Host’

Use this option if you are having difficulty with your POP or SMTP connection timing out and failing. This is commonly due to using unnumbered PPP connections to an ISP on a NetWare server. When the POP collection is started, the IP address of the link is unknown and when the connection is made i-Mail does not receive a response from the internet host. Using Pre-Ping will cause your internet link to be pre-activated before POP or SMTP processes are started, allowing them to use the newly assigned IP addresses.

This option requires ‘TPING.NLM’ to be resident in your SYS:SYSTEM directory.

Pause for ‘x’ seconds

Set this value to a time that will guarantee that the connection to the internet is live and before the link goes inactive.

Use this host

If you wish you may specify a host to ping, often your ISP web site, otherwise the first recipient in a batch of messages will be used.

Requeue unsent mailevery 'x' minutes

Default: 60

Mail that cannot be delivered due to link failures will be retried after the specified number of minutes

Return mail if it fails 'x' times

Default: 24

If an external mail message fails to reach its destination after trying the specified number of times, it will be returned to the sender.

POP with SMTP delay

Default: 0 (off)

If your ISP requires you to do a POP collection before they will authorise SMTP access, enter a value in this box. This value needs to be enough time to perform a POP collection, but not so long that SMTP access is denied. Check with your ISP for their timeframe, it is usually 10-20 minutes, so a 30 second to a minute time delay with a dial-up account is usually sufficient.

Concepts

The POP collection engine of i-Mail is a powerful and flexible e-mail collection system. It can be used to download and distribute company mail and also collect mail for individual recipients and store their mail in their own mail box. This is very useful for mobile workers who need to keep information both at work, at home and on their laptop computer.

Tips

The POP and SMTP server, username and password should be provided by your service provider. These will often be in the format of pop3.isp.com, smtp.isp.com or mail.isp.com.