ClearFoundation

SMTP lets you can manage your own mail server. There are a number of reasons this might be advantageous:

• Ability to have a customized user and domain name - ie. anyone@anydomain.com
• Mailboxes limited only by hard disk storage capacity and your own administration settings
• Alias support - i.e. sales@yourcompany.com can be sent to bob@yourcompany.com and joe@yourcompany.com
• No waiting around for new users to be added
• Custom antispam control
• Antivirus support
• Privacy
• Full control

A number of services are available for mail services:

• Mail Antimalware
• Mail Antispam

If you did not select this module to be included during the installation process, you must first install the module.

The Hostname does not have to be related to the e-mail domains that you host. It can be ANY valid Internet name for your machine. For example, you may wish to have a dedicated mail server on your network. In this case, you might want to name this machine mail.yourdomain.com. This would be the Hostname you would enter.

The Primary domain field indicates the domain name this server will act as an SMTP/Mail server for. If you have a single domain name that you receive mail for, enter the domain here.

If SMTP Authentication field is set to on, any client attempting to send mail through the server will require a username/password before accepting mail for delivery.

For Mozilla's Thunderbird, click on “Tools –> Account Settings” and then click on the “Outgoing Server (SMTP)” field. You should see a window similar to the screenshot below.

ss_smtp_auth_mozilla.png

Ensure the “Use name and password” setting is checked and enter the username of the mail account in the username field. The password will be requested by the mail client application on the first attempt to send mail. There will be an option to save it to the “Password Manager” so that you do not have to enter each time you send mail through the server.

If you are using MS Outlook/Outlook Express, click on “Tools –> Accounts”. Select the account which will use this mail server to send mail and click on the “Properties”.

ss_smtp_auth_outlook.png

Make sure the “My server requires authentication” is checked. Click on the “Settings” button to enter the details of your username/password.

ss_smtp_auth_outlook_servers.png

Setting the Catch All User to an valid user on the server will pass all mail sent to an “Unknown user” to this account. To bounce mail addressed to an invalid recipient, set to Return to sender.

A trusted network is a list of networks that are allowed to send mail through the SMTP server. Dynamic IP's should not be added to this list. It is important that you do not make an error with this parameter. The default setting allows any user with a 192.168.x.x address send e-mail through the server. If you use a 10.x.x.x address, you should add 10.0.0.0/8 to the list of trusted networks.

Some ISPs will block all traffic on port 25 unless it it destined for their mail servers. In this case, you would want to specify your ISPs mailserver as the Outbound Relay Hosts.

If your company/organization has multiple domains and you wish to receive email sent to any user for any of the domains, enter additional domains to the Destination Domains list. For example, if our primary domain was setup to be “pointclark.net” and we wanted all emails sent to the following registered domains to be valid:

• clearos.com
• clearfoundation.com
• clearfoundation.net

We would add the bulleted domain list above to the “Destination” domains list.

Virtual domains are not supported. Here's why.

If the server you are configuring your server as a mail gateway, add the domain name to the “Mail Forward Domain list”. If the Mail Antispam module is installed and running on the server, mail will be subject to the spam identification rules you have configured. Similarly, if the Mail Antimalware module is installed and running, all mail for the domains will be scanned before passing the mail on to the destination server.

Do not forget to open up firewall ports for your e-mail server: port 25 on the firewall configuration page.

Some ISPs are known to block SMTP (port 25) traffic to residential broadband connections in an attempt to cut down on SPAM originating from their network. If you think your configuration is set-up correctly and you suspect your ISP is blocking SMTP traffic, try a port scan.

• Setting up a POP/IMAP server
• Postfix Documentation
• Adding incoming firewall rules