Copyright: © Deborah Galea


Help Contents
Contents

Explaining Mail essentials

Introduction

Key features - a detailed explanation

How does Mail essentials work?

Installing Mail essentials

Preparing for installation

Installing Mail essentials

Running the Exchange server add-on installation

Configuring Mail essentials

Introduction

Mail essentials configuration program

Step 1: Configuring Mail essentials to receive mail

Using the POP3 downloader to receive email

Dial up Connection options

Step 2: Configuring Mail essentials to forward received mail to your mail server

Step 3: Configuring Mail essentials to send out mail.

Step 4: Configuring your mail server to relay mail via Mail essentials

Step 5. Starting the Mail essentials services

Configuring E-mail security

Introduction

Anti Spam options

Virus Checking

Disclaimer

Email encryption and decryption

Configuring Content checking

Introduction

Blocking PGP messages

Blocking attachments

Blocking mails with words/phrases

Removing HTML scripts

Importing and exporting keywords

User based content checking

Quarantined e-mail

Configuring Email management

Introduction

Log options

Auto replies

Archiving

Configuring Miscellaneous options

Introduction

Compression options

Configuring the Mail essentials tab

Introduction

SMTP Server

General Options

Protecting against mail relaying

Using Mail essentials as a POP3 server

Troubleshooting

If you are having problems

The troubleshooter

Checking if MX records are set correctly

FAQ on http://www.gfi.com

Support section on the GFI website

Appendix: Using POP3 or SMTP to receive mail

Introduction

Using POP3 to receive mail

Using SMTP to receive mail

Creating an ODBC data source

Introduction

To set up an ODBC data source


Explaining Mail essentials - Introduction
Introduction

GFI Mail essentials is a server program that adds email security and management features to mail servers.

Mail essentials Features:

1.	Security

•	Anti Spam

•	Virus checking

•	Company wide disclaimer/email footer text

•	Email encryption/decryption

2.	Content checking

•	Block attachments

•	Block mails with words/phrases

3.	Email Management

•	Logging / reporting

•	Auto-replies/tracking numbers

•	Archiving to ODBC database

4.	Miscellaneous

•	POP 3 downloader

•	Compression of attachments

•	Web monitor

•	API to allow you to develop custom functions


Key features - a detailed explanation

1. Security

2. Content

3. Management

4. Miscellaneous


1. Security

Anti Spam

Virus checking

Company wide disclaimer/email footer text

Email encryption/decryption


Anti Spam

Spam is a known problem. Messages sent by spammers contain useless information that cause frustration and take up valuable time. Although some mail servers include a facility to block out email from certain domains, current day spammers are much more advanced than that. They frequently change their domains in order to avoid this kind of blocking.

Therefore, Mail essentials includes an advanced Anti Spam module that is able to pick up on typical spam practices, such as incorrect 'reply to' addresses, 'from' headers containing incorrect domains etc. In this way Mail essentials stops spam from reaching your company. What's more, you can also stop spammers using your mail server to send out their spam!


Virus checking

Mail essentials can automatically protect your company from viruses transmitted via e-mail by analyzing all email attachments and scanning them for viruses using any popular virus-scanning product. Emails that are found to contain a virus, will be quarantined. Mail essentials can also scan all outgoing attachments.


Company wide disclaimer/email footer text

Because companies are effectively responsible for the content of their employees' e-mail messages, it is extremely important to ensure that a disclaimer is added to each outgoing email. Furthermore, this disclaimer/footer text can be used to add a uniform message to each email, for example an address or company slogan. Although most employees will have their own personal signature, the disclaimer/footer text will ensure that the corporate message is always communicated.


Email encryption/decryption

Mail essentials allows you to send and receive email securely over the Internet using PGP. Without PGP encryption, it is easily possible that other people can read and even change the content of your email. If you are communicating with other companies and exchange confidential information, it is essential that you encrypt your email before sending it. Traditionally, encrypting email was a cumbersome task. However, with Mail essentials, encryption and decryption is done at server level and is therefore completely transparent to the user.


2. Content

Block mail with words/phrases

Block attachments


Block mail with words/phrases

An important feature of Mail essentials is its ability to check the content of in- and outbound mail. For instance, you can check for offensive language or you can check for confidential information or files that might be leaving the company unauthorized!


Block attachments

You can also choose to 'quarantine' e-mails with certain content or attachments, so that you can view them before deciding whether they can be sent out.


3. Management

Logging/Reporting

Mail archiving to a database

Auto replies with tracking numbers


Logging/Reporting

Mail essentials also includes a reporting module, which allows you to create reports on Internet mail usage. These reports can be used for costing purposes.


Mail archiving to a database

With Mail essentials you can archive all in- and outbound mail in a database of your choice. This allows you to keep a back up of all e-mail communications and easily search for a customer's emails. Furthermore, it enables you to check the content of messages and quality of responses.


Auto replies with tracking numbers

Auto replies can be more than just an 'out of office reply'. With automatic replies, you can let your customers know that their e-mail has been received and that their request is being dealt with. Auto replies can contain useful information such as FAQ's, useful telephone numbers, address information etc, and can be customized according to the address the mail was sent to. Furthermore, Mail essentials adds two powerful features to auto replies:

•	Personalization: With Mail essentials, the recipient of the auto reply can be personally greeted. This greatly increases the likelihood of the recipient reading and taking notice of the auto reply.

•	Tracking numbers: Mail essentials can assign a unique tracking number to each incoming mail and include these in the auto reply. This gives your customer and employees a reference point, and adds to your company's professional image. Tracking numbers are included in the subject field, making them easy to search for.


4. Miscellaneous

Compress attachments

POP3 downloader

POP3 server


Compress attachments

Bandwidth is expensive. Even 'simple' e-mail attachments, such as a Word document with a few graphics can easily grow to about 1 MB or larger, taking a substantial toll on your bandwidth. Although attachments can be brought back to a few KB by compressing them, the process of compressing files is cumbersome. However, with Mail essentials it is possible to automatically compress attachments at server level, saving your employees time and always ensuring that the minimum amount of bandwidth is used. Furthermore, because emails with small file attachments travel much faster over the Internet, by compressing attachments you can also ensure a faster delivery of the email message.


POP3 downloader

Some mail servers, such as Exchange Server and Lotus Notes, are unable to download mail from POP3 mailboxes. Therefore Mail essentials includes a utility that can forward mail from POP3 mailboxes to mailboxes on your mail server, helping you save on ISP costs. Using this feature you can also use a single POP3 mailbox to receive mail for your entire company, because the POP downloader can analyse the message headers and distribute the mail within Exchange. You can also specify the maximum size of email that must be downloaded, in order to avoid one email blocking all other incoming mail.


POP3 server

Mail essentials also includes a POP3 server in case you do not have a mail server installed. The POP3 server allows you to create mailboxes for each user.


How does Mail essentials work?

Mail essentials effectively becomes a gateway to the Internet for all in- and outbound email. It resides in front of your mail server, receiving and sending all its email.

Although Mail essentials can handle both in- and outbound mail, you can configure Mail essentials only to handle in- or outbound mail. Similarly, although Mail essentials offers numerous features, you can decide to only use some of them.

Mail essentials consists of the following parts:

More:

Mail essentials server

Mail essentials Message Analysing agent

Mail essentials configuration

Mail essentials Log/reports exporter


Mail essentials server

The Mail essentials server is the core of Mail essentials: it sends and receives all mail. The Mail essentials server can be monitored remotely using a web browser.


Mail essentials Message Analysing agent

The Mail essentials Message Analysing agent is a service that analyses the content of all in- and outbound mail and performs all the functions such as encryption/decryption, content checking, adding disclaimers etc.

If a mail is quarantined, the message analysing agent will notify the appropriate supervisor/administrator and ask for approval of the message.


Mail essentials configuration

The configuration program allows you to set up and configure Mail essentials. Using the tabs you can configure all the features of Mail essentials.

If you have Microsoft Exchange server installed, the Mail essentials configuration can also be accessed from the Microsoft Exchange administrator > Internet Mail service. This also allows you to configure Mail essentials remotely.


Mail essentials Log/reports exporter

This application allows you to export Mail essentials logs to Microsoft Excel. This application allows you to view detailed logs of all in- and outbound mail. Furthermore, you can also view reports on email usage.


Preparing for installation

To install Mail essentials you require the following:

•	Windows NT 4 (Server or Workstation)

•	Microsoft Exchange server 4,5 or 5.5,  Lotus Notes 4.5 and up or an SMTP/POP3 mail server.

Before you install Mail essentials, please check the following:

•	Ensure that your mail server is running correctly. If you are not sure, check whether you can send and receive e-mail messages via the Internet.

•	If you are using Microsoft Exchange server, you must have the Internet mail connector installed and running.

•	Make sure you are logged on as an Administrator.

Note: Mail essentials does not need to be installed on the mail server machine. In fact if you have a spare machine, it would be good practice to install it on a separate machine.

Note: If possible install Mail essentials on a separate machine! This will make your installation more secure and leave more processing time to both Mail essentials and your mail server.


Installing Mail essentials - Installing Mail essentials
Installing Mail essentials

Step 1: Insert the Mail essentials CD-ROM in your CD-ROM drive, and run mes.exe from Windows Explorer. If you have downloaded Mail essentials, simply double-click mes.exe

Step 2: Close all other Windows programs and click Next.

Step 3: Confirm the License agreement.

Step 4: Enter your e-mail address, company name, and serial number. If you are evaluating the product, enter Evaluation. Click Next.

Step 5: Select which mail server you wish to use. If your mail server is not listed, select 'Other SMTP/POP3 server'

Step 6: Set-up will now ask you to specify your mail server name and your local domain.

•	The mail server name can either be a machine name or the machine IP.

•	The local domain is the last part of your internal e-mail address, for example gficomms.com.

Step 7: Enter the e-mail address of the Administrator.

Step 8: Set-up will now ask you where you want Mail essentials to be installed. Mail essentials will need approximately 30 MB of free hard disk space. In addition to this, you must reserve approximately 200 MB for temporary files. Click Next to continue.

Step 9: The set-up program will now copy all program files to the selected destination, and finish the installation by creating a GFI Mail essentials program group. Click Finish to finish setup and view the Getting Started document.

Mail essentials will install three new services on your computer:

•	Mail essentials server service

•	Mail essentials quarantine service

•	Mail essentials analyser service

If you are using Microsoft Exchange server as your mail server, continue to the next paragraph.


Running the Exchange server add-on installation

If you are using Microsoft Exchange server, you now need to run the Microsoft Exchange installation procedure on the Exchange server machine. This installs a few components that specifically integrate with Microsoft Exchange server. The installation should only be run on the Exchange server machine itself.

To install the Exchange server add-on:

Step 1: Run Setup.exe from the Mail essentials/ExchangeInstall directory. If you are running Mail essentials on another machine than Exchange server: On the Exchange server machine, create a mapping to the Mail essentials/ExchangeInstall directory on the Mail essentials machine and run setup.exe from that directory/mapping.

Step 2: Close all other Windows programs and click Next.

Step 3: Confirm the License agreement.

Step 4: Confirm your NT Server name and click Next.

Step 5: Confirm your Organization and Site names. To check whether your Organization and Site names are correct, the format should be as follows:

/o=ORGANIZATION/ou=SITE

ORGANIZATION: The name shown at the top of the Exchange Administrator. For example, in the screen grab below, this is GFI. If setup does not come up with your Organization name, please enter it manually. If you are entering it manually and your Organization name contains spaces or other special characters, you must enter it in between quotes, as follows: "GFI".

SITE: The name displayed in the Exchange Administrator with a "World" icon next to it. For example, in the screenshot below, this is GFIFAXM. If setup does not come up with your Site name, please enter it manually. If you are entering it manually and your Site name contains spaces or other special characters, you must enter it in between quotes.

Step 6: Enter the name of the Mail essentials server.

Step 7: Setup will now copy all files. Click OK to complete the installation.


Configuring Mail essentials - Introduction
Introduction

After you have installed Mail essentials, you must setup Mail essentials as a gateway for all internet email.

In order for Mail essentials to analyse all inbound and outbound mail, Mail essentials must receive and send all internet email.  This means that you must allow Mail essentials to send & receive all inbound email just as your mail server does currently.

To do this, follow the five steps that are explained in this chapter:

Step 1. Configuring Mail essentials to receive mail.

Step 2. Configuring Mail essentials to forward received mail to your mail server

Step 3. Configure Mail essentials to send mail.

Step 4. Configure your mail server to relay mail via Mail essentials

Step 5. Start the Mail essentials services.

In case you have not yet decided how you wish to send and receive mail (i.e. you have not setup your Mail server yet to do this), you can choose whether to use SMTP or POP3 for receiving mail. You can find more information on this choice in the appendix 'Using SMTP or POP3 to receive mail?"

Note: This chapter assumes you are familiar with setting up your mail server to connect to the Internet. If you are not familiar with this, its best to contact your consultant/reseller/administrator who setup your mail server.


Mail essentials configuration program

All Mail essentials configuration is done from the Mail essentials Configuration program, located in the Mail essentials program group.

More:

If you have Microsoft Exchange Server


If you have Microsoft Exchange Server

If you have Microsoft Exchange server you can also access the Mail essentials configuration from the Internet mail connector in the Exchange Administrator. Since the settings will be synchronised when you make any changes, you can interchange the method you use: the Mail essentials Configuration from the Mail essentials program group or the Internet Mail service.

The advantage of using the Microsoft Exchange Administator/Internet mail service is that you can configure most of the options from anywhere in the network. The options that cannot be configured remotely are:

•	Specifying path to the PGP package

•	Specifying the path to the anti-virus software.

•	Dialup Networking Profile

•	All mail ENCRYPTION settings (PGP module is on server)

•	All archiving settings (since ODBC database are on the server)

However these are options that you rarely have to change.


Step 1: Configuring Mail essentials to receive mail

Mail essentials can receive inbound mail either via SMTP or by downloading mail from a POP3 mailbox. For more information on this see the appendix.

•	If you decide to use POP3 mail, you need to configure the POP3 downloader

•	If you decide to use SMTP, you don't need to configure anything in Mail essentials configuration.  However, you will need to install Mail essentials on a machine with a public IP address. Also, if your mail server is installed on the same machine, you must configure your mail server to use another SMTP receiving port. Ideally, you will also use a continous connection to the Internet.

Important note: If Mail essentials is installed on another machine than Exchange server, the DNS service has to be updated with the new IP of the Mail essentials machine so that incoming internet SMTP mail will go through Mail essentials.  The new IP will have to be set up as an MX record so that mail systems sending mails to your domain over the internet will start sending mail through Mail essentials instead of Exchange server directly.

If you have dial up access to the Internet and still want to use SMTP.

If you don't have a continuous connection to the Internet, and you still wish to use SMTP, then you must use ETRN to receive mail. How to setup Mail essentials to receive mail using ETRN can be found in the Dial up options paragraph of this chapter.

SMTP options

You will not have to make any changes in the SMTP options dialog. Therefore we will not go into detail in this chapter about the SMTP options. They will be discussed in the chapter 'Configuring general and misc options'.


Using the POP3 downloader to receive email

Nowadays its better to receive mail using SMTP. It requires a little more set-ups, but it's a much more scalable and modern way to receive mail. If you wish to receive mail by downloading mail from one or more POP3 mailboxes, you need to set-up the POP3 downloader.

This can be done from the Mail essentials general tab, under 'POP3 downloader'. To download mail from a POP3 mailbox;

1. Click on 'Enable POP3 downloader'.

2. Click on POP3 options button to bring up the POP3 options dialog.

3. To add a POP3 mailbox from which you wish to download mail, click Add.

Enter the POP3 server name, for example mail.myisp.com. Then enter the POP3 mailbox/login name and the password of the mailbox. Then choose from two options:

•	Send mail to address stored in To field: Activate this option if you wish Mail essentials to analyse the header and route the mail accordingly. If the mail analysing fails the mail will be sent to the mail address specified in the alternate address.

•	Send mail to email address: Activate this option if you wish all mail from this mailbox to be forwarded to one email address. Enter the full smtp address in the 'Email address' box, for example john@company.com

5. When you are ready, click OK. You can add as many POP3 mailboxes as you wish.

Note: When specifying the destination email address (the address where Mail essentials will forward the email to), be sure that you have set up a corresponding address in Email addresses tab of the recipient of the email. Use your mail server, in Exchange Server the Exchange administrator, to set this up.

More:

Other POP3 downloading options


Other POP3 downloading options

Check every .. minutes: Specify the download interval. (This option will be greyed out if you have set Mail essentials to dial out in the Dial up tab)

Leave emails on server: (This option only appears when you are not using Dial up) If you tick this option, Mail essentials will leave emails on the POP3 server after downloading instead of deleting them.

Do not download mail larger than: Here you can specify a maximum download size. If mail exceeds this size, it will not be downloaded.

If mail is larger, then: You can either choose to delete mail larger than the maximum allowed size, or send a message to the postmaster asking whether the message should be downloaded.


Dial up Connection options

Note: These options are only relevant if you are using dial up to send and receive mail. If you do not tick this option, then Mail essentials will expect that you either have a leased line, or are using a router to connect to the Internet.

To send and receive mails by dial-up, tick the option 'Send and receive mails by dial-up'. After you enabled the option, click on Dial-up options to display the Dial-up options dialog.

Here you can specify where and when Mail essentials should dial out to pick up and send email. You must specify a dial up networking profile and specify a login name and password, as well as a schedule when the mail should be sent/ picked up. The dial up networking profiles are set up from RAS. If you are using SMTP to receive mail, you must also set the ETRN options.

The following options are available:

Use this Dial-Up Networking profile: Choose the Dial up Networking profile you wish to use from the drop down list.

If not connected dial: If you tick this option Mail essentials will only dial up if there is no connection.

Process only when already connected: If you tick this option, Mail essentials will only process mail if a connection already exists.

Dial every .. minutes: Enter the interval at which Mail essentials must either dial up or check if a connection already exists (depends on whether you set Mail essentials to dial up or to only process mail when already connected).

User name: Enter the user name used to logon to your ISP.

Password: Enter the password used to logon to your ISP.

Dial allowed only at the following hours of the week: Specify the hours at which Mail essentials can dial out. A 'V' indicates that Mail essentials can dial out. An 'X' indicates that Mail essentials will not dial out at this hour.

More:

ETRN mail retrieval options


ETRN mail retrieval options

Note: You only need to set up ETRN if you are using SMTP to receive your mail. You must have a fixed IP and your ISP must be capable of handing ETRN.

What is ETRN?

The "ETRN" (Extended TuRN) command was created (RFC1985) to address the security hole. When the receiver connects and issues the ETRN command, the SMTP server starts a new connection to deliver the queued mail for that server. This method requires a static IP address, because the sender will de-queue the messages using the receiver's known IP address (this is part of the security). Without a static IP address, the sender wouldn't know where to connect.

More:

How to set up ETRN function:


How to set up ETRN function:

1. The ISP will have to give you a fixed IP address and mail domain.

2. The ISP will have to set up an MX and a record for your domain name and host.

3. You will need to configure RAS/DUN:

•	You need a phonebook entry that makes a fully automated connection to the ISP.

•	You need a TCP/IP hostname and domain configured in Control Panel/Networks/Protocols/TCP/IP Protocol.

4. In the Dial up options dialog of the Mail essentials configuration, specify "Invoke e-mail retrieving with ETRN command"

5. Specify the full Internet address  (IP or DNS name) of the mail server from which you want to download all emails under "ISP mail server name". For example myisp.mail.com

6. Specify the domain for which mail should be retrieved, for example mydomain.com

Notes for the Internet Service Provider:

1. The ISP will have to list your domain (i.e. company.com) in their list of ETRN allowed domains. In this way all mails for your domain will be queued until you pick up your mail.

2. Your ISP will have to decide on a de-queue method


Step 2: Configuring Mail essentials to forward received mail to your mail server

After Mail essentials has received the mail and checked it, it will forward it to your mail server. In order for it to do this it must know:

•	Your mail server name

•	Your local domain (s)

These settings have been asked during installation, and if you have entered them correctly there is no need to change them.

If you did not specify them during installation or specified them incorrectly,  you must enter the mail server and local domain name. This is done in "Mail server settings" in the Mail essentials configuration program, Mail essentials Tab or in the Exchange administrator Internet mail connector.

Here you can specify;

Mail server name; Specify the name of your mail server. The mail server name can either be a machine name or the machine IP. If you are installing Mail essentials on the same machine as the mail server, be sure that you will change the SMTP port of your mail server and also add the :26 option after the IP.

Administrator: Specify the postmaster/administrator's email address.

Local domain; Here you must enter your local domain. This way Mail essentials will know what mail is internal and what mail is external. The local domain is the last part of your internal e-mail address, for example gficomms.com.


Step 3: Configuring Mail essentials to send out mail.

After you have configured Mail essentials to receive email, you must configure Mail essentials to send out mail.

To do this, please follow the next steps:

1.	Click on SMTP Options in the Mail essentials Configuration > Mail essentials tab.

2.	Choose whether you wish your mail to be sent directly, or via your ISP. Please note that to send out mail directly, you must have specified a DNS server in the Windows NT network options.

•	If you choose to send mail directly, activate the option Send mail directly to destination. (only recommended if you have a continuous connection).

•	If you wish to send out mail via your ISP, or if you do not have a DNS server set up, activate the option For all mail, use this smtp server, and enter the mail server name of your ISP.

3.	For more information on the other options, please consult the paragraph 'SMTP options' in the chapter 'Setting up the Mail essentials functions'.

Note: To send out mail directly, you must have specified a DNS server in the Windows NT network options.


Step 4: Configuring your mail server to relay mail via Mail essentials

After you have configured Mail essentials to send and receive mail, you must configure your mail server to relay all mail to Mail essentials. To do this, you must;

•	Change the port on your mail server, if you receive mail via SMTP and if you have installed Mail essentials on the same machine as your mail server.

•	Configure your mail server to forward all outbound mail to Mail essentials

More:

Configuring your mail server to receive mail on a different port

Configuring your mail server to send mail via Mail essentials


Configuring your mail server to receive mail on a different port

Note: This step is only necessary if you are using Mail essentials on the same machine as your mail server and you wish to receive mail via SMTP! If you are using a separate machine for Mail essentials, do not forget to update your MX records to point to the Mail essentials machine!

If you are running Mail essentials on the same machine as your mail server and you are using SMTP to receive email, you must configure your mail server to be on a different port than Mail essentials. By default, your mail server will be on port 25, the port on which Mail essentials must receive email. (Mail essentials can not be moved to another port, since otherwise it wont receive the email coming in via the internet and therefore it wont be able to analyse it)

To change the SMTP port on your mail server:

1. On the Exchange server machine, open the file"../system32/drivers/etc/services", located in your Windows NT directory, with notepad.

2. Change the line smtp 25/tcp mail to smtp 26/tcp mail. This means you are changing the SMTP port of Exchange from 25 to 26.

3. Go to the Mail server settings section in the Mail essentials Configuration > Mail essentials tab, and in the edit box Mail server, enter the IP or host address of the Exchange server machine, followed by the port number (26 in our example) (for example: "100.130.130.129:26" or "localhost:26").

4. Re-start the machine. You have now configured Mail essentials to receive mail on SMTP port 25 and then to reroute it to your Exchange server on port 26.

Note: If you de-install Mail essentials you must change the Exchange server port back to 25.

If you have Lotus Notes:

1.	If you have Lotus Notes you must change the port of the SMTP agent to port 26. However it is easier to install Mail essentials on a separate machine and avoid having to change the Port. If you wish to install Lotus Notes on the same machine, please consult the FAQ on our website for recent information regarding this issue.

2.	Go to the Mail settings section in the Mail essentials general tab in the Mail essentials configuration program and in the edit box Mail server, enter the IP or host address of the Lotus Notes machine, followed by the port number (26 in our example) (for example: "100.130.130.129:26" or "localhost:26").

3.	Re-start the machine. You have now configured Mail essentials to receive mail on SMTP port 25 & then to reroute it to your Lotus Notes on port 26.

If you have an SMTP/POP3 mail server:

1.	Set the mail server to a different SMTP port, for example 26.

2.	Go to the Mail server options in the General tab in the Mail Essentials configuration.

3.	In the edit box 'Enter mail server name', enter the IP or host address of the Mail server machine, followed by the port number (26 in our example) (for example: "100.130.130.129:26" or "localhost:26").

4.	Re-start the machine. You have now configured Mail essentials to receive mail on SMTP port 25 & then to reroute it to your Mail server on port 26.

Please consult the FAQ on our website for further instructions.


Configuring your mail server to send mail via Mail essentials

Note: Please note down the settings of the Exchange IMS connections tab before making changes to it. You will need these settings if you wish to uninstall Mail essentials.

Now you must configure your mail server to relay all outbound mail to Mail essentials. To do this;

If you have Microsoft Exchange Server:

1.	Start up Microsoft Exchange Administrator.

2.	Go to the Internet Mail Service and double-click on it to configure its properties.

3.	Go to the Connections tab.

4.	Message Delivery section, select 'Forward all messages to host'. Enter the computer name or IP of the machine running Mail essentials. If Mail essentials is running on the same machine, enter the IP name of that machine.

5.	Click OK and restart Exchange server.

If you have Lotus Notes:

1.	Double click on the Address Book button in Lotus Notes

2.	Click on Server item to open it's sub-items

3.	Click on Domains

4.	Click on Add Domains

5.	In the Basics section, select Foreign SMTP Domain from the Domain Type field.

6.	In the Messages Addressed to section type '*' in the Internet Domain field.

7.	In the Should be routed to section enter the IP number of the Mail Essentials machine in the Internet Host field

8.	Save the settings and restart the Lotus Notes server

If you have an SMTP/POP3 mail server:

1.	Startup the configuration program of your mail server.

2.	Search for the option to relay all outbound mail via another mail server. This option will be called something like 'Forward all messages to host' . Enter the computer name or IP of the machine running Mail essentials. If Mail essentials is running on the same machine, enter the IP name of that machine.

3.	Click OK and restart your mail server.


Step 5. Starting the Mail essentials services

After you have configured Mail essentials and your mail server, you are ready to start the Mail essentials services from the services applet in Control panel:

•	Mail essentials server service

•	Mail essentials quarantine service

•	Mail essentials analyser service

Note: The Mail essentials services have been set to automatically start when the machine starts. However if you have not restarted your machine after setup you will need to start the services manually.


Configuring E-mail security - Introduction
Introduction

After you have set up Mail essentials to send and receive mail, you can start configuring the Mail essentials features from the Mail essentials configuration.

In this chapter we will explain how to set up the security features in the Mail Security Tab. Here, all options relating to email security are listed: Anti-spam, Virus checking, Disclaimer and Email encryption.


Anti Spam options

Mail essentials includes advanced Anti Spam options. When Mail essentials finds a spam message, it will delete the message.

The following options are available:

Refuse mail without valid FROM: domain: Tick this option if you wish Mail essentials to refuse all mail that does not contain a valid 'from' address.

Refuse mail without FROM in e-mail header: Tick this option if you wish Mail essentials to refuse mail that does not contain a 'from' address in the e-mail header.

Furthermore, you can click on the Advanced button to specify more anti-spam options. The following options are available:

Refuse mail from these domains: Here you can specify the domains from which you do not wish to receive email. To specify a domain, click Add and enter the domain name, for instance company.com. Click OK.

Delete mails with word/phrase in body: Tick this option to delete incoming e-mails with certain words or phrases in the body of the e-mail. Enter the words or phrases by clicking Add and entering the text. Click OK.

Delete mails with word/phrase in subject: Tick this option to delete incoming e-mails with certain words or phrases in the subject of the e-mail. Enter the words or phrases by clicking Add and entering the text. Click OK.

Match whole words only (applies for words/phrases in subject/body): If you tick this option, any words set in the antispam list to delete mail with particular words/phrases in body, will be matched by whole word.

e.g. If the word 'health' is in the list, only mail with 'health' will be deleted.  Mail with the word 'healthspa' will pass through.

If this option is unticked, Mail essentials will check for any part of any word and delete the mail accordingly.

e.g.  If the word 'health' is in the list, the mail with the word 'healthspa' will be deleted.

Note: To stop spammers from relaying their mail through your mail server, configure the Advanced Options in the Mail essentials Tab > SMTP server section. For more information on this, consult the chapter 'Configuring the Mail essentials tab'.


Virus Checking

In the section Virus checking you can configure virus checking of mail attachments. When Mail essentials finds a message with a virus, it will quarantine the message.

The following options are available:

Check Inbound mail: Tick this option to enable virus checking for incoming mail.

Check Outbound mail: Tick this option to enable virus checking for outgoing mail.

Mail essentials uses the included Norman virus engine. GFI recommends this Norman Anti Virus scanner, because it is a DLL, not a command line scanner. That means that virus checking will be much more efficient. The Norman Anti virus engine is a proven and reliable virus detection engine, which has received many awards and certifications, including the industry leading certifications of ICSA, VirusBTN and Check mark.

More:

Anti virus settings

Other options

Optional Command line scanners


Anti virus settings

The Norman Anti Virus engine can be configured by clicking on the Anti Virus settings button.

More:

Auto downloading options

Triggering the virus update manually

If the auto downloader service does not start


Auto downloading options

Required for auto downloading: Internet explorer 3 or higher installed on the machine running Mail essentials.

Mail essentials will automatically check the GFI website each day if there are new virus definition files. In order for it to do this, it is required that you have Internet Explorer 3.0 or above installed. It is recommend you install the latest version of Internet Explorer for security reasons. If you use a proxy server, you must setup Internet Explorer to work correctly with that proxy server

Note: If you are behind a firewall, you have to enable an FTP connection on the firewall which lets the machine where Mail essentials is installed open an FTP connection (PORT 21) to host ftp.gfi.com or ftp.gfifax.de


Triggering the virus update manually

You can instruct Mail essentials to update the virus definition files manually. This might be useful to check your connection or in case you have a dial up connection. To update the virus files manually:

1. Go to the command prompt

2. Change to the Mail essentials directory

3. Type 'rundll32 dnvc.dll,dnv_test ftp.gfi.com' and press enter. If you are located in the EU, it might be better to use the EU mirror server: ftp.gfifax.de.

Note: If a dialog window with message 'Error loading dnvc.dll' is shown, then you do not have Internet Explorer 3.0 or higher installed.

The virus definition files Nvcbin.def and Nvcmacro.def will now be updated. You can check the file date of these files in the Mail essentials/nse directory to check that the files have been updated.

If the download of the virus update files fails, a file called ltautodnvc.txt and optionally ltvircheck.txt will be created in the Mail essentials directory. If this happens, please send these files to support@gfi.com.


If the auto downloader service does not start

The program that actually downloads the virus updates is called the Mail essentials virus def updater. It is implemented as a service. If this service does not start, updates will not be downloaded. If this is the case, you need to check the Windows Event log to check the reason why it did not start. This is a list of possible error codes and their solutions.

Error	Description	Solution
9979	Wininet.dll was not found	Install IE3.0 or above
9978	Dnvc.dll was not found or a dependency of Dnvc.dll was not found.	Files missing, re-install needed.
9977	Dnvc.dll is invalid or corrupt (export functions were not found)	Dnvc.dll could be old, re-install needed.
9989	Internal Fatal Error – Could not create event.	N/A
9988	Mail essentials user database failed to initialize.	Check ltautodnvc.txt for more information.
9987	Mail essentials user database failed to open.	Check ltautodnvc.txt for more information.


Other options

The Anti Virus settings include 2 other important options;

Repair infected files (if possible) - You can instruct Norman to remove a virus from a file if possible.

Remove all uncertified macros from document files – This option allows you to remove a macro from a Microsoft Word file. It is highly recommended to enable this option. This will effectively protect you 100% from any unknown macro viruses, simply because they will be removed. Ofcourse some macros are not viruses, but its best to remove any macro received via the internet.


Optional Command line scanners

All incoming and outgoing mail is checked automatically by the Norman Anti Virus scanner which is included with Mail esentials. However, in some cases you might want to virus check the mail twice. We don't recommend this, since it will negatively affect Mail essentials performance. Also, the use of a command line scanner is an outdated method. Unfortunately both Mcafee and Norton do not provide any more advanced integration possibilities than via the command line scanner (an old DOS method).

If corporate policies require you to use them, you can set it up as follows:

More:

Using the Netshield command line virus scanner

Using Norton Antivirus


Using the Netshield command line virus scanner

Note: The exact version supported is Mcafee Netshield NT v4.03a scanner.

To set up virus checking with for McAfee:

1.	Ensure that you have installed McAfee Netshield on the same machine as Mail essentials.

2.	In the option 'Select scanner' select Netshield NT v4.03a.

3.	Under the option 'Specify virus scanner executable', click on Browse.

4.	Select scan32.exe in the McAfee/Network Associates' program directory.


Using Norton Antivirus

Note: The exact version supported is Norton Antivirus 5.0 for NT & Norton Anti virus 2000.

To set up virus checking with Norton Antivirus:

1.	Ensure that you have installed Norton Antivirus on the same machine as Mail essentials.

2.	In the option 'Select scanner' select Norton Antivirus NT v5.0 or Norton AntiVirus 2000

3.	Under the option 'Specify virus scanner executable', click on Browse.

4.	Select the command line scanner navwnt.exe from the 'Norton Antivirus' program directory.

5.	Disable the autoprotect feature in the Norton Antivirus options.

6.	To avoid a beep sound for each scan, uncheck tick button in Option> Alerts tab in Norton Antivirus configuration application.


Disclaimer

In the Disclaimer section of the Mail Security tab, you can specify a global disclaimer which will be added to the end of each outgoing e-mail.

To enable the disclaimer, simply tick Add Disclaimer and click  on Edit Disclaimer.

You can now enter your disclaimer text or import text from a text file by clicking Import text file. Click Export if you wish to save the text you entered as a text file.

You can also add an individual disclaimer for each and every local domain specified in the Mail essentials tab.


Email encryption and decryption

Under Email encryption you can configure email encryption and decryption. To use this feature, you need to have PGP Freeware v6.5.3 installed.

Follow the steps below to set up centralized encryption and decryption:

More:

1. Installing PGP Freeware

2. Configuring PGP Keyring Options

3. Creating a public key to receive encrypted mail

4. Enabling other parties to send you secure email

5. Adding the public PGP key to your disclaimer

6. Sending email securely (=encrypted)


1. Installing PGP Freeware

Install PGP Freeware v6.5.3 on the Mail essentials machine. PGP Freeware can be downloaded at no cost from

http://www.pgpi.com

For more information on this product, or on how to use it, please see its documentation.


2. Configuring PGP Keyring Options

For PGP to be configured to encrypt and decrypt mail at Mail essentials server level the Keyring Option dialog has to be configured.  To do this click on the 'Keyring Options' button.

In this dialog you have to configure the file path to the secret keyring and the public keyring created by PGP Freeware.  Click 'Browse' and go to the directory where the PGP keyrings are, by default the PGP keyrings are installed in a directory called 'PGP Keyrings' in the PGP Freeware directory.  When you have browsed to the keyrings directory select the file secring.skr for the Private Keyring path and for the Public Keyring path select the file pubring.pkr.

When you have selected both paths click the 'Test…' button to check that the keyring files specified are correct.


3. Creating a public key to receive encrypted mail

To receive email and have it automatically decrypted, you need to create a public key that you will be sending to the people who wish to send you encrypted mail, and install it in Mail essentials. To do this:

1. In the PGP Freeware program, create your own PGP Public Key by launching PGPkeys.exe and selecting New Key from the 'Keys' menu.

2. In the Mail essentials configuration, go to the Mail security tab > Encryption section and click on Encryption options.

3. Tick Enable Automatic mail decryption.

Enter the password you used when you created your Key.  NOTE: The password is case sensitive. Click on OK.

Mail essentials will now automatically decrypt any messages sent to your company using your PGP Public key.


4. Enabling other parties to send you secure email

For people to send you encrypted mails with your public PGP key, you have to export your public pgp key from PGPkey.exe. To do this:

1. Open PGPkeys.exe and select your public PGP Key. Right click on it and select Export form the menu.  Take note of where you save the .asc file.

2. Open the .asc file with Notepad and copy the text (BEGIN AND END included).

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
TO
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

3. The text you copied is your PGP Public Key.  You can freely distribute this text to anyone who wishes to send you encrypted email.

A typical PGP Public key is shown below:

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
mQCNAzegJIkAAAEEAM07sn1zzYGEh/2AOYPSoIJ/yWolDTN4YayzziOskHriYdojgiP1ssfMpdYUNuuu4CIlxhTuEti4EpRwYa3PX3Tok9+BVn5o2eWDbuag9OyuwX3kkQRlK/ZAPgsDuFtiqHZK1ph38r9M/oLFidk2W57OYipHVDUbbSdD6dMcyzAAURtCBEYXZpZCBWZWxsYSA8dmVsbGFkQGthdHRhcmUuY29tPokAlQMFEDegJIm20nQ+nTHMswEBMHoEAMQaSnKQ8i3iMIiWUW6jb3KHr4M047qnUKqpimtOrc5SUm68zsGT8gsoXzxPLyJ5tnk1LBKCtSU/nD2r7E4yK1L0I2/XOE0FFzk8r5McmriJICH0IlbeOvmdLaI75u303B/ORAvvoxk83IdZwGGoCY7uN1pQls2WFP2GZBQGBW7w=+MAT
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----


5. Adding the public PGP key to your disclaimer

Using the Mail essentials Disclaimer feature (see paragraph above), you can automatically append your public key to each outgoing mail, including instructions on how to use it. In this way you can give the recipient the option to send you a secure answer.


6. Sending email securely (=encrypted)

If you wish to send secure email you need to know the recipient's public PGP key. Just like above, the recipient will have to send you his/her public key so that you can encrypt the email.

Mail essentials is able to do this at server level. You can specify a recipient's email address, or even an entire domain and have all email sent to that address automatically encrypted. If the recipient uses PGP or Mail essentials then your email will be decrypted automatically as well.

Recipients can use the following software to decrypt a message at client level: PGP freeware, PGP for Outlook by NAI. There are many PGP applications, many of which are freeware. For a more complete listing see our website. If recipients wish to decrypt the email at server level, they will need to install a package like Mail essentials. Please note that PGP is an open standard, Mail essentials is not required to decrypt at server level. However, to our knowledge there are no other packages that can decrypt email at server level.

To install a recipient's public key and send secure email:

1. Obtain the public key of the recipient. This can be sent to you as an attachment, or you can take the key from their signature or disclaimer.

2. Activate the PGPkeys application from the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) program group.

3. Select Import from the Keys menu.

4. Select the public key file. The public key is now installed.

5. Start up the Mail essentials configuration program and go to  Mail Security > Encryption tab and click on Encryption Options.

6. Tick Enable automatic encryption.

7. Now you can add conditions based on which mail should be encrypted or not. To add a condition, simply enter an email address or a domain and select the appropriate PGP key from the PGP list box. Then click Add.

Mail essentials will automatically populate the PGP key list box with all the keys that have been installed using the PGPkeys application on the Mail essentials machine.

8. When you have added all the conditions, click OK to exit the dialog. All e-mails to the recipients and domains listed in the conditions dialogs will now be automatically encrypted.


Configuring Content checking - Introduction
Introduction

This chapter explains how to set up content checking and filtering in the Content tab of the Mail essentials configuration.


Blocking PGP messages

Mail essentials can block PGP messages in order to prevent users encoding their message at client level to bypass Mail essentials. To enable this option, tick Block PGP messages in the Mail essentials Configuration > Content tab. Mail essentials will now 'quarantine' all in- and outbound encrypted mail and forward this to the Administrator for approval or rejection (see paragraph 'quarantined e-mail')..

Note: Do not enable this option if you wish to be able to send and receive encrypted mail.


Blocking attachments

Mail essentials can block in- or outbound e-mails that contain certain attachments. If an e-mail contains a specified attachment, it can be 'quarantined' and forwarded to the Administrator for approval or rejection (see paragraph 'quarantined e-mail') or otherwise deleted on receival.  Clicking the Attachment Options button, will open a dialog from where you can specify the following options:

Block all attachments: Tick this option if you wish to block all attachments.

Block attachments of type: Tick this option if you only want to disallow certain file extensions, for example *.xls (Excel attachments), or any other format. To enter the file type, click Add and enter the extension. Click OK. Repeat this for all the extensions you wish to block.

Block all attachments except: Tick this option if you only want to allow certain file extensions, for example *.xls (Excel attachments), or any other format. To enter the file type, click Add and enter the extension. Click OK. Repeat this for all the extensions you wish to block.

Actions to perform: In this section you need to set the actions to perform on mail that match the attachment options rules. These are the actions that can be performed:

•	Quarantine: The administrator is notified that a mail is quarantined and the appropriate action can then be performed.

•	Delete mail: The mail will be automatically deleted. You can set this option to notify both sender and intended recipient.

•	Delete attachment: The attachment within the mail will be deleted.  You can set this option to notify the sender of this mail.

Content check attachments:  Tick this option if you want to content check by phrase (as specified in the Content  Checking Tab) the content of .doc, .htm, .html, .txt, .rtf attachments.

Block attachments whose size exceeds: Tick this option if you want to block an email containing attachments larger then the specified size.  The specified size relates to a summation of all attachments available within the email i.e. if two attachments are larger the e.g. 1Mb as in this case, the email is quarantined.


Blocking mails with words/phrases

Mail essentials can block in- or outbound e-mails that contain certain words or phrases in the body or subject. If an e-mail contains a specified word/phrase, it will be 'quarantined' and forwarded to the Administrator for approval or rejection (see paragraph 'quarantined e-mail').

Block mails with word/phrase in body: Tick this option if you wish to block email messages that contain certain words in the body, for example 'get rich'. To activate this, tick the checkbox and enter the words by clicking Add.

Block mails with words/phrase in subject: Tick this option if you wish to block email messages that contain certain words in the subject, for example 'get rich'. To activate this, tick the checkbox and enter the words by clicking Add.

If you wish that Mail essentials blocks words/phrases only if they are a whole word, please enable the option "Match whole words only".

An example would be sports. If you enable match whole words, it will only quarantine mail with the word 'sports'. It will not quarantine 'nbasports'.


Removing HTML scripts

A recommended new feature of Mail essentials 3.5 is to remove all scripts that are included in HTML mail. The fact that scripts can be included in HTML mail is a big security gap waiting to be exploited by virus writers. It is best to remove any scripts automatically from email.

This will ofcourse mean you will not be able to receive some HTML mail correctly. Most notably banner scripts and other forms included in newsletters will no longer work. However it's a small price to pay for security…

To enable this option, tick 'Remove embedded HTML scripts from mail'.


Importing and exporting keywords

Mail Essentials offers you the functionality to export & import keywords and phrases.

You can import & export the following:

•	Words or phrases in body list

•	Words or phrases in subject list

•	Attachment list to block

•	Attachment list to content check

To import phrases, you have to prepare a text file which has the word or phrase to check for on a separate line, for example:

ad:

advert

announcement

act now

Each line must be separated by an enter.


User based content checking

Note: User based content checking requires Microsoft Exchange server.

If you have Microsoft Exchange server, you can specify particular rules per user or groups of users. In this way you can make exceptions for supervisors or management.

To do this:

1.	Select one or more users.

2.	Specify the rules you wish to enforce.

3.	Specify a particular administrator.

4.	Click Apply.

The rules you specify will now be saved for all the users you selected.

More:

Using profiles


Using profiles

Optionally, you can store a set of rules under a profile. The advantage of this is that when you make a change in the profile, the settings of all users associated with this profile will be automatically adjusted. To set up a profile:

1.	Click on the Settings button in the Profile Settings section. A dialog with identical content checking options will appear.

2.	Click Add and give the new profile a name.

3.	Specify the different rules and click close. The profile will now be stored in the Profiles list.

4.	To apply the profile to a user or group of users, simply select the user(s) from the list, select the profile and click the Apply (next to the profiles listbox).

To make a change in an existing profile:

1.	Click on the Settings button in the Profile Settings section.

2.	Select the profile from the list and make the changes.

3.	Click Close. The changes will now be applied to all users assigned to the profile.


Quarantined e-mail

When an email does not pass the 'content check' and is quarantined, the administrator is notified by receiving the actual mail that is quarantined. The subject of the message is: 'Quarantined Message:' followed by the actual subject of the e-mail.

The quarantined e-mail notification will contain the reason for quarantining, the original e-mail as attachment, and the following three options:

Approve Message: This will approve the message and it will automatically be sent to the recipient.

Delete Message: This will delete the message.

Delete and Notify: This action will delete the message, and notify the sender that the message was not sent out.

Note: The Administrator must have an HTML compatible email client, such as Outlook 98, Outlook 2000, Outlook Express, Eudora 4.0 or Netscape to be able to view the HTML e-mail.

More:

Specifying the Administrator

Using the Moderator Client


Specifying the Administrator

The default Administrator address is specified during installation. However if you wish to change the address, or wish to use different Administrators for different profiles/groups, you can do so from the Content tab in the Administrator dialog box.

TIP: You can also specify the email address of a public folder. In that case you can assign a group of users to reject/approve email messages.


Using the Moderator Client

Alternatively you can use the Moderator Client, which is a management utility that displays all the messages being quarantined.

You are provided with a graphical interface displaying all the quarantined messages awaiting the mail administrator's intervention.

The Administrator can either view the content of the mail, approve, delete or 'delete and notify'.  When viewing a particular message, you are also presented with a reason for quarantine.

The Moderator Client offers extensive search capabilities and the ability to set a particular notification.


Configuring Email management - Introduction
Introduction

This chapter explains how to set up the Email management options in the Management tab of the Mail essentials configuration.


Log options

Mail essentials can create a detailed log file of all mail that has been sent and received. Using this log file, you can check delivery times of email and also receive confirmation that the remote mail server has received the mail.

You can export these logs files to Excel and create reports from them. The following log options are available:

Create Log file: Tick this option if you wish Mail essentials to create a log file. To configure what Mail essentials must log, click on Log options.

Log POP3 server: If you tick this option, the POP3 server activity will be logged.

Log POP3 Retrieval: If you tick this option, Mail essentials will log all retrieval from your POP3 mailboxes.

Log SMTP server: Activating this option will ensure that Mail essentials will log all activity of the SMTP server.

Log Dial up: This option will log all dial up activity.


Auto replies

The Auto reply options allow you to send automated replies to certain incoming e-mails. You can specify a different auto reply for each e-mail address or subject. You can use variables in an auto reply to personalise an email.

To add an auto reply:

1. Click on Add in the Auto replies section.

2. Specify when the auto reply should be sent:

When email is sent to: In this field you must enter the email address, for instance sales@company.com, which should trigger the auto reply. I.e. if an e-mail is sent to this address, it will receive the auto reply below.

And subject contains (optional): You can also specify whether the e-mail must contain a certain subject in order for the auto-reply to be sent out.

3. Specify the auto reply text: Enter the text that you wish to be sent. To import a text file, click Import text file. If you wish to include an attachment, click on Add Attachment and choose the file you wish to send. You can personalise the auto reply by clicking Insert Variable. The following fields are available:

•	Date Field: This will insert the date that the e-mail was sent.

•	From Email Field: This will insert the e-mail address of the sender.

•	From Name Field: This will insert the name of the sender.

•	Subject Field: This will insert the subject of the e-mail.

•	To Email Field: This will insert the recipient's e-mail address.

•	To Name Field: This will insert the recipient's name.

•	Tracking Number: This will insert the tracking number.

Select the variable you wish to insert and click OK.

Other options:

Generate Tracking Number in subject: Activate this option if you wish the auto reply to include a tracking number in the subject. The tracking number can be used as a point of reference for the sender and your company. The tracking number will be added to the auto reply and also to the subject of the original mail. Therefore, if you route the mail to a public folder, you can easily search for a customers email on tracking number.

Include email sent: Activate this option if you wish the auto reply to include the e-mail text that was sent.

Note: When creating auto reply text, be sure not to format the body text beyond 30-40 characters per line. Or do not include hard returns. This is because some older mail servers will truncate the line at 30-40 characters. If your text is longer than that and contains a return at the end of the line, you message will be truncated as follows:

Example:

This is a long text line with a return at the end. It looks fine in my editor

This is the next line

Might look like this:

This is a long text line with a return at the end. It looks

fine in my

editor

This is the next line

Therefore many newsletters that you receive are formatted to avoid this. Unfortunately trial and error and testing are the only way to avoid this at the moment. This is not a deficiency in Mail essentials - it is a 'feature' of email as it is today.


Archiving

The archiving options allow you to archive all in- and outbound mail to an ODBC database or to a text file. The following options are available:

Inbound mail: Tick this option to enable archiving of inbound mail.

Outbound mail: Tick this option to enable archiving of Outbound mail.

For both in- and outbound mail archiving, you can either archive each mail to a text file, or you can archive it to a database. This way you can run reports and searches on all email.

More:

To archive to text files

To archive to an ODBC database


To archive to text files

1. Select Text file.

2. Click Browse to select the directory. Be sure to select a drive with ample disk space!


To archive to an ODBC database

1. Select ODBC Source.

2. Select an available ODBC source.

More:

If using Microsoft Access

If using Microsoft SQL server


If using Microsoft Access

During installation, Mail essentials has automatically created a default ODBC DSN for Microsoft Access (if sufficient rights were available during installation). This Access database, mail-archive.mdb, is located in the Mail essentials directory.  By default, Mail essentials will archive to that MDB file, using the MSACCESS ODBC Driver.

To archive to an Access database, you will need to have Microsoft Access 97/2000 installed on the Mail essentials machine.


If using Microsoft SQL server

1. First open mail-archive.mdb, located in the Mail essentials directory with Microsoft Access and use that as template to recreate the same structure of the mdb file on the SQL server database.

2. Add the SQL server database as a DSN. To learn how to add a DSN, review the Appendix 'Creating an ODBC data source'.

3. Select this ODBC source.


Configuring Miscellaneous options - Introduction
Introduction

This chapter describes the options found in the Miscellaneous tab.


Compression options

In this section you can set the options for automatic compression of attachments. This option will substantially reduce bandwidth usage, since most attachments such as bitmaps, documents, spreadsheets, etc. can be reduced to up to 10 times their original file size simply by compressing them.

Mail essentials compresses mails in the popular zip format, which means that anybody with 'Winzip' installed can uncompress the attachments. Furthermore, Mail essentials can make the attachments self extracting, i.e. when a recipient double-clicks on the attachment it will automatically decompress itself.

To compress outbound attachments:

1.	Tick the option Compress outbound mail attachments.

2.	The following files are excluded from compression by default (since they already include compression in the file format itself): *.zip, *.pdf, *.jpg, *.gif. If you wish to add more files or remove any, click on File Types.

3.	Tick Compress to self-executable files if you wish the attachments to be converted into self-executable files. I.e. when the recipient double-clicks on the attachment the file will decompress itself automatically.

4.	Enter the minimum amount of KB that the file should be decreased by in order to activate automatic compression in the Do not compress mail if difference between original and zipped file is less than: dialog box.


Configuring the Mail essentials tab - Introduction
Introduction

The Mail essentials tab contains all Mail server, POP3 downloader/server and Dial up options. In the chapter 'Configuring Mail essentials' we have already discussed the options that needed to be configured to get Mail essentials up and running. In this chapter the other features are explained.


SMTP Server

This section contains the mail server settings given during installation. If you need to make any changes, you can do so from here:

Mail server name: Specify the name of your mail server. The mail server name can either be a machine name or the machine IP.

Administrator: Specify the postmaster/administrator's email address.

Local domain: Here you must enter your local domain. This way Mail essentials will know what mail is internal and what mail is external. The local domain is the last part of your internal e-mail address, for example gficomms.com.

More:

SMTP Options

Advanced Options


SMTP Options

If you need to change any of the SMTP settings, click on SMTP Options:

SMTP Server Port: Leave this option as default.

Maximum retry: Maximum number of times that the SMTP server will try to make a connection.

Max. connections: This sets the maximum number of connections.

Retry after (min.): This option sets the delay time between the retries.

Send out all mail directly to destination: If you wish that Mail essentials sends out all the email, i.e. resolves the domain and sends mail, enable this option. (This option requires a DNS server to be set up).

For all mail use this SMTP server:  If you do not have a DNS server, tick this option and enter the mail server name of your ISP.

Do not receive mail larger than: Enter the maximum size of e-mail you wish to receive. If an incoming mail is larger than the maximum size, the email is returned to the sender with the reason why the mail could not be received.


Advanced Options

With the Advanced options you can stop spammers from relaying their mail through your mail server. To configure this, click on Advanced Options in the SMTP Options dialog.

Domain routing table: In this table you can enter the forwarding  addresses for other domains. This way you can forward mail from different domains to different servers. To add an additional domain;

1. Click Add

2. Enter a mail domain, ie gfifax.com and then enter a mail server name or IP where the mail should be forwarded.

Allow mail relay from:  In this table you can enter a number of mail servers that are allowed to relay mail through you server. If they are not entered in this table, mail essentials will disallow these mail servers to relay mail and the mail will be bounced. By default, only mail for the local domain will be sent, to protect you from spammers using your mail server to send spam mail.

To add domains that can forward through you;

1. Click Add

2. Enter a mail domain, ie gfifax.com and then optionally enter an IP of the mail server name that may relay mail. If you are not sure what the IP of the machine is, open a DOS box and type: ping <machine name>, where machine name is the name of your mail server. Ping will reply with the correct IP.

Note: When Mail essentials is receiving mails it first determines whether the mail server is allowed to send mail through Mail essentials. The following process is used to determine this:

1. Is the recipient domain listed in the 'Domain routing table for local domains (relaying)'.

2. If yes, then Mail essentials will look at the Sender address. If the e-mail domain (last part of the email address after the @) or sender's IP is listed in 'Allowed servers or domains', it will accept the email. (Note: This table is empty by default. This means that all mail will be accepted. To avoid people relaying mail through your mail server, you should only enter your domain here.)

4.	During transmission the server looks at the allowed maximum size of the mail (as specified in the SMTP Option 'Do not receive mail larger than') and if the quota is exceeded the server will stop receiving.


General Options

Path to configuration file

Registration


Path to configuration file

Because Mail essentials can be installed on a different machine than your mail server and because you can remotely configure Mail essentials, you might need to change or specify the path to the configuration file of Mail essentials. This can be done using the 'Change path' dialog.


Registration

If you have purchased Mail essentials, you can enter your serial number by clicking on Register.

If you are evaluating Mail essentials, the product will time out after 60 days. If you then decide to purchase Mail essentials, you can just enter the serial number here without having to re-install.


Protecting against mail relaying

To stop spammers using your mail server to send out SPAM (also called mail relaying):

1. Open the Mail essentials Administrator, Mail Security Tab, and enable 'Refuse mail without valid FROM domain'.

2. Now, click on the Mail essentials Tab, click the SMTP Options button, and click on Advanced Options.  In the 'Allow mail relay from' field box, enter the domains and their mail server IP that you wish to receive mail for, for example 'mycompany.com'. If you have other domains that you receive email from, or other companies you wish to allow to send email via your mail server, add their domains as well. The ones that are not listed will not be allowed.  Please note that if you enter just the domain name in the 'Allow mail relay from' field box with no IP, spammers can easily mimic your domain name thus entering the IP is important for the appropriate anti relaying protection.

Note: If you don't list your own domain, no mail will be received!


Using Mail essentials as a POP3 server

Mail essentials has a built in capability to act as a POP3 server. This can be useful if you do not wish your Exchange server to be on a machine with a public IP, i.e. you can put your Exchange server behind a firewall on a private IP and make it impossible for hackers to access your Exchange server.

To set up Mail essentials' mail server:

1. Under POP3 downloader options in the Mail essentials general tab, enable the POP3 server check box.

2. Click on the POP3 server button next to it. The POP3 server dialog will now appear with a list of users.

3. Click Add to create your users/mailboxes on the mail server.

4. A dialog box will appear. Enter the full email address of the new user including the domain, for example: user@yourdomain.com, and enter the password for the mailbox. If you wish the mail to be automatically directed to another email address, enter the email address in the Redirect box.

Note: Mail essentials has a powerful capability to allow you to include any domain, even if it is not an officially registered domain. This means you can easily create aliases/multiple email addresses.

5. Click OK. You have now created a user on the Mail essentials server. This user can now access his/her mail by retrieving the mail with a POP3 client and using the user name and password to log in.


If you are having problems

If you have any questions or encounter any problems, you can consult the 'Mail essentials FAQ' in the Mail essentials Program Group, which will automatically connect you to theError! Bookmark not defined.

If you do not find your aError! Bookmark not defined. or contact your dealer or distributor, or one of GFI's offices.

When sending email, please be sure to include the following

•	The troubleshooter output

•	Your serial number

•	A valid email return address. If your email is not working, include a fax number.


The troubleshooter

In the Mail essentials program group you will find the troubleshooter program. This program collects all the information from the machine, and makes it possible for us to diagnose the problem.

In addition to collecting all the information, it also asks you a number of questions. Please take your time to answer these questions accurately. Without the proper information it will not be possible to diagnose your problem.

When you have run the troubleshooter and collected all the information, the troubleshooter will create a selection of files in the directory it specifies.

Please send us all these files along with your support request.


Checking if MX records are set correctly

If you are installing Mail essentials on a different machine than the mail server machine, you will need to update your MX records to point to the Mail essentials machine.

If you do not do this, the mail will go directly to your mail server, and Mail essentials will not be able to content check the mail. We frequently get support mails of customers who do not have their MX records set correctly and therefore mail is bypassing Mail essentials!

Outlined below is a procedure how to check whether your MX records are set correctly and how to check that Mail essentials is actually receiving all the mail.

We have use the example domain 'freshmeat.net'.

1. Open a command prompt (cmd.exe) and type nslookup.exe and press enter.

2. Type 'set q=mx' and press enter.   This will tell nslookup that you only want a dump of the MX records of that domain.

3. Type 'server ns.um.edu.mt' and press enter. This will tell nslookup to use ns.um.edu.mt to get the MX info from. You can use any DNS server that is available to you.

4. Type the domain you want to get the MX records, in out examples 'freshmeat.net'

The following data will be returned:

> freshmeat.net

Server:  ns.um.edu.mt

Address:  193.188.47.67

Non-authoritative answer:

freshmeat.net   MX preference = 0, mail exchanger = mail.freshmeat.net

freshmeat.net   nameserver = ns1.freshmeat.net

freshmeat.net   nameserver = ns1.andover.net

freshmeat.net   nameserver = ns2.andover.net

freshmeat.net   nameserver = ns3.andover.net

mail.freshmeat.net      internet address = 64.28.67.97

ns1.freshmeat.net       internet address = 209.207.224.213

ns1.andover.net internet address = 209.207.224.196

ns2.andover.net internet address = 209.207.224.197

ns3.andover.net internet address = 209.192.217.104

>

As you can see there is only one MX record which is

freshmeat.net   MX preference = 0, mail exchanger = mail.freshmeat.net

In some other domains there could be more than 1 MX record so it is important to check all Ips' of every MX record.

The 'freshmeat.net' MX record tells us that the name of the computer which is accepting inbound mail (i.e. smtp mail server) is mail.freshmeat.net.  In the same dump we can determine the ip of mail.freshmeat.net:

mail.freshmeat.net      internet address = 64.28.67.97

5. Now we know the IP and mail server name, we can telnet to the mail server to determine what mail server is running. Run telnet from the command prompt: 'telnet 64.28.67.97 25'. This will open a telnet window and connect to that IP on port 25 (i.e. SMTP server).

6. You will now get a response from the smtp server indicating what type of SMTP server is running on that IP. In the 'freshmeat.net' case the SMTP server is:

220 mail.freshmeat.net ESMTP Postfix

This shows us that the SMTP server they are using is NOT Mail essentials but some other type of SMTP server.  If it was Mail essentials the text returned by the SMTP server would be:

220 mail.freshmeat.net Mail essentials  server (2.422) ready for ESMTP transfer

7. Now repeat this entire procedure with your own domain name. If after running through the above procedure, you do not get the above text from the Mail essentials server, all mail is bypassing Mail essentials and is not being content checked. In this case, you must update the MX records. If you are not familiar with this, contact your consultant or ISP and ask them to modify the MX records so that the mail goes to the Mail essentials machine.


FAQ on http://www.gfi.com

GFI maintains a support FAQ, which lists answers to most common problems. If you have a problem with Mail essentials, please read this FAQ first.

The FAQ's website URL is: http://www.gfi.com/me/mesfaq.htm.


Support section on the GFI website

Besides the FAQ, the GFI website also has a support section for Mail essentials. This section lists the current service pack, as well as other product news such as virus alerts. The web site will always have the most up to date listing of support questions and patches.

Also, be sure to register your version of Mail essentials on:

http://www.gfi.com/pages/regfrm.htm

This will allow us to notify you of security alerts and service packs.


Appendix: Using POP3 or SMTP to receive mail - Introduction
Introduction

This appendix is a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of POP3 and SMTP to help you make an informed decision on which system you wish to use to receive email.


Using POP3 to receive mail

Post office protocol (POP3 (RFC 1225)) is a client/server protocol for storing email so that the client can connect to the POP3 server at any time and read the email. A mail client will make a TCP/IP connection with the server and by exchanging a series of commands, read the email. POP3 is supported by all ISP's.

More:

Advantages

Disadvantages


Advantages

•	Simple

•	Any ISP can support it

•	No need for fixed IP address, so no need to implement security (firewalls etc.)

•	Highly reliable

•	Less administration overhead


Disadvantages

•	BCC messages are not routed with your organization.

•	If users subscribe to a mailing list, and the ISP mail server does not support the 'for' clause, messages from some mailing lists will not be routed. Why is this? When mail is sent via SMTP, the actual recipient is provided by the sender on the "RCPT" command. This information is called part of the "envelope" (since it is outside of the message), and is sometimes not included anywhere in the actual mail message's header. For a single recipient, this is not a problem. If the mail is in your mailbox, you know it is for you. However, if all mail directed at a specific domain goes into the same mailbox, there may be no way of determining who the mail should be delivered to. This is most often the case for messages from mailing lists or if the BCC: field was used.

There is however a solution for this problem. The most common is in the Received: line. According to page 32 of RFC 821, the Received: line should look something like this:

Received: from sender.com by yourisp.com for you@yourdomain.com

The "for" clause is derived directly from the envelope information, so even if the To: and Cc: lines make no mention of "you@yourdomain.com", the true recipient can be found here. Thus, any POP to Exchange solution must (at least) be able to parse the Received: lines in the header in order to forward the mail to the correct local recipient.

Note: An easy way around the above problem is to create dedicated POP3 mailboxes for lists. Then route the lists to a public mailbox, so that other users can also benefit from the lists.


Using SMTP to receive mail

Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP(RFC821)) is a server-to-server protocol for sending e-mail across the Internet. Briefly, a mail client will make a TCP connection to an ISP's SMTP server and upload a mail message (complete with headers) and instructions to whom the message should be delivered. The SMTP server will then either deliver the message (if it knows the final recipient) or pass it along to another SMTP server. SMTP works best when all servers are connected all the time. If the receiving server is not available, then the sender will have to queue the message and try later. Eventually, the sender will either make it through or give up and return the message to its originator. In the case of dial-up connections, the receiver may be unavailable more often than not.

More:

Advantages of using SMTP

Disadvantages using of SMTP


Advantages of using SMTP

•	Server protocol, not client protocol

•	Allows you to create an unlimited amount of email addresses on your mail server, without having to worry about aliases etc.


Disadvantages using of SMTP

•	Additional administrative overhead

•	Creates need to set up security,  i.e. firewall

•	Requires expertise

Your choice should mainly depend on the know-how that is available within your company. If you feel you can deal with the additional administrative overhead of using SMTP, select SMTP. If on the other hand you are not sure that you have the know-how in house to configure SMTP, DNS servers, Firewalls etc., it is best to go for the POP3 option and accept its limitations.


Creating an ODBC data source - Introduction
Introduction

Mail essentials uses ODBC to allow you to use different kinds of databases to archive email. To be able to use ODBC databases, you will have to set up your database as an ODBC source first. To do this, follow the steps below.


To set up an ODBC data source

Step 1: Go Start > Settings > Control Panel.

Step 2: Double-click on the ODBC Data Sources icon. This starts up ODBC Data Source Administrator dialog. ODBC requires that any database you wish to use is added as either a user DSN (if you want it to be available to you only) or a system DSN (if you want it to be available to all users on this machine). Depending on your preference, you must now select the User DSN or the System DSN Tab.

Step 3: Click Add. This fires up the 'Create New Data Source' dialog. (A data source is essentially a link to an existing database).

Step 4: Select your database driver, for example, the Microsoft Access Driver (This requires Microsoft Access to be installed). Click Finish.

Step 5: In the ODBC Microsoft Access 97 Set-up dialog, give the database a name and description, then click Select and select the database file. Click OK, and exit the ODBC Data Source Administrator. Your data source is now set up!