Email - Topics
Important Note: Beginning September 2003 all websites are being setup using new mailservers running Qmail. This change was made in order to provide additional features and flexibility including anti-virus filtering and user-configurable spam filtering. The documenation in this section covers the new Qmail system. For documentation on the previous Sendmail system please click here. Customers may switch their websites to the new mailserver by emailing support@intersessions.com with the name of your website, website password and contact email address.
For more information about the our mail system please see the Administrative Guide and the information below. You can also try our live demo. Using the demo you can add and delete email accounts and email forwards and try all of the control panels. The demo is restored every 15 minutes to its initial state.
Setting up your email accounts
Important Note: In the examples provided below the name of the mailserver is 'avspamfilter.com'. If you have been notified that your mailserver is 'pegasus.avspamfilter.com' or another name please substitute that mailserver name for 'avspamfilter.com' in the URL's and examples below.
Log on to the Hosting Control Panel. (See the left-hand side navigation menu on most web pages). Then click on any email icon to access the email control panels.
Click on Email Accounts to view the email accounts that have been setup. Click on 'New Email Account' to setup a new email account and enter the requested information. You can turn on spam filtering by checking the box at the bottom of the screen.
You can also reach the email control panels by using the URL:
http://pop3.your_domain.com/cgi-bin/qmailadmin
Login with:
username: postmaster (type the word 'postmaster')
Mail settings for Outlook Express, Netscape and other email programs
domain: your_domain.com (enter your domain name - no 'www')
password: password (enter your website's master password)
Use the following settings:
incoming mail server (pop3): pop3.your-domain.com
Make sure that 'this server requires authentication' or 'SMTP authentication' is checked.
outgoing mail server (smtp): smtp.your-domain.com
account name: emailname@your-domain.com (for example 'john@panix.com' or 'sally@ibm.com')
password: the password you assigned to the email account when you set it up above
** NOTE - for some email programs (like Eudora) you may need to use a '%' character instead of a '@' character in the account name. **
Anti-virus filtering
All email entering the mailserver is passed through an anti-virus scanner. The virus definition database is updated hourly to insure the risk of infection from new viruses is minimzed. When the scanner finds a virus infected email the email itself is quarantined and an email is sent to the sender notifying him him that his email was blocked. Quarantined emails are kept for four days before being deleted.
Spam filtering and adjusting spam preferences
The Intersessions' mailserver uses a spam scoring system to identify spam emails. Typically this system will block 90% to 95% of a recipient's spam without the loss of legitimate emails. The system develops a spam score for each email based upon a number of factors adjustable by the user, including; heuristic analysis of the characteristics of the email, whether the sending IP address is a known source of spam, language of the email, etc. If the spam score exceeds the user definable threshold the email is considered spam and placed into your website's spam email account.
Using the spam preferences control panel each user can set the spam sensitivity (i.e. spam score threshold), the languages that will be accepted (eliminates spam in foreign languages), the internet databases to consult to help identify spam and create his own email blacklists and whitelists.
Mail identified as spam is transferred to the spam email account for your domain. After ten days spam emails are automatically deleted. You can examine the email that has been trapped as spam by downloading the spam to your email program or by using our web email program. The account name for this account would be 'spam@your_domain.com'. (For our web email program you will need to use 'spam%your_domain.com' as the login.) The password is initially set to the word 'none'.
It makes sense to periodically examine the contents of the spam pop account to see if any legitimate emails were trapped. If so, you can decrease your spam sensitivity settings or add this email address to your whitelist.
Email forwarding and aliases
Email aliases and forwards allow you to have mail addressed to 'sales@your_domain.com' to be forwarded to one of your email accounts or to a remote email on another network. In our version of qmail the functionality of email aliases have been combined with email forwarding into one control panel.
This section of the control panel can also be used to forward email to multiple persons. After you have setup to first forward go back to the list of forward and click on the 'modify' icon. You'll then be able to add additional email addresses to be copied.
Vacation Messages
From the email control panel main menu click on 'Email Accounts'. Then click on the icon for "Modify User' next to the email account for which you want to setup a vacation message. From the modify user screen click on the radio button for vacation and enter your vacation message in the space provided. Be sure to change the routing back to 'Standard' when you return.
Autoresponders
Autoresponders can be used to automatically send a message to anyone sending an email to a particular email address at your domain. For example, you can send one message to people that send an email to 'auto-sales@your_domain.com' and another messages to people that send and email to 'tire-sales@your_domain.com. To setup an autoresponder click on 'New Autoresponder' from the email control panel main menu and enter the email address of the autoresponder (i.e. 'auto-sales@your_domain.com'), if you want to see a copy of the email sent to the autoresponder enter your email address on the next line, then enter the subject and the message that will appear in the email sent back by the autoresponder.
Configuring a mailing list
From the email control panel click on 'New Mailing List'. Click here to see a sample of the mailing list setup screen. The selections are self-explanatory. The mailing list program we use is ezmlm. For more information please see http://avspamfilter.com/qmailadmin-help/ezman/ezman.html.
Email user self-configuration
Your email users can login to the mailserver email control panel directly. They are able to change their password, enter vacation messages and configure their spam preferences. Go to the URL http://pop3.your_domain.com/cgi-bin/qmailadmin and enter the following:
User Account: email_account_name (enter 'jane' if their email address is 'jane@your_domain.com')
Domain Name: your_domain.com
Password: password (enter the user's email account password)
Multiple language support
The email control panels automatically recognize the user's preferred language and change the control panel descriptions accordingly. The control panels supports english, french, spanish and 17 other languages. With Microsoft's Internet Explorer you can change the browser's preferred language using the following menu sequence: Tools > Internet Options > Languages. Other browsers provide similar support.
Reseller notes
In order to keep Intersessions transparent Resellers may not wish to use the domain name 'avspamfilter.com' for the incoming/outgoing mailserver or in the URL to the email control panels. Alternatively, you can use:
incoming mailserver (pop3): pop3.your_domain.com
outgoing mailserver (smtp): smtp.your_domain.com
url to control panel: http://pop3.your_domain.com/cgi-bin/qmailadmin
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