Avast32 MS Outlook/Exchange plugin ================================== The new version of AVAST32 plugin for e-mail scanning in the following clients: MS Exchange client / Windows Messaging MS Outlook 95/97/98/2000 This e-mail protection is automatically installed with standard AVAST32 program installation. Avast32 Internet Mail plugin ============================ What it is? ----------- AVAST32 Internet Mail plugin allows testing of internet mail incoming to your computer and leaving it. It works as a local SMTP and POP3 server. Your mail client must therefore send requests to Avast and Avast will then send them further to your POP3 or SMTP server Installation ------------ Avast32 Internet Mail Plugin is installed together with Avast32 program. At the end of installation you are asked, if you wish to install support for testing the e-mails.If you answer is yes, then the configuration program "AvPopWiz" will start after the next start of your computer, which will setup Avast32 Internet Mail plugin for your mail accounts. AvPopWiz is able to work with accounts of the most widely used mail clients. If you will not be given the choice of your e-mail accounts, then your mail client is not supported. In that case, you must perform a manual setting. Next, AvPopWiz will add an automatically started resident tasks of the provider and start a program that takes care of testing incoming e-mails. Command prompt of "AvPopWiz" program ------------------------------------ You can enter one switch at a time: /a+ -- enables e-mail check (SMTP and POP) for all accounts /a- -- disables e-mail check (SMTP and POP) for all accounts /s+ -- enables e-mail check SMTP for all accounts /s- -- disables e-mail check SMTP for all accounts /p+ -- enables e-mail check POP for all accounts /p- -- disables e-mail check POP for all accounts Eg. "AvPopWiz.exe /s-" turns off checks of outgoing e-mails for all e-mail accounts of all users on local machine. The changes in configuration will take effect after the restart of mail program. Before the uninstalation of program, the e-mail check should be turned of using "AvPopWiz /a-" . Manual Setting --------------- To install Avast32 Internet Mail plugin you must perform these steps: Change the Avast32.ini file Change the resident task Change the setting of mail client Into the file Avast.ini, section [MailScanner], enter into the part DefaultSmtpServer adress of your SMTP server (server made for sending mails). Similarly, enter into the section DefaultPopServer the address of your POP3 server (server for receiving mails).A complete description of all sections in INI files is available in next chapter. e. Change the resident task of Avast32 program according to this: Run the enhanced user interface of Avast32 program. Stop the resident task. On page Resident add the provider Internet Mail. Some new pages will appear, on which you can change the parameters of provider. On page "Archives" add MIME and uu-encoded files.This changed task is ready for testing e-mails. Finally you must change your mail client. Find the SMTP and POP3 server settings. If you want to use the scanning of the outgoing mail, then change the address of smtp server on address of local computer: 127.0.0.1 . Messages will then go through the Avast32 Internet Mail plugin which sends them to the SMTP server specified in Avast32.ini file. If you want to check just incoming e-mails, you have to change the setting of POP3 server. Set the address of POP3 server on 127.0.0.1 . Change the name of your mail account like this - add the # character behind your username and then the address of you POP3 server. Example: If you are downloading e-mail from account John.Brown from server pop.server1.com and from second account John on server pop.server2.com, change the username of the first one on John.Brown#pop.server1 and the username of the second account on John#pop.server2.com . Addresses of a both servers change to 127.0.0.1 . !Note: ------ If you are using for sending e-mails more SMTP servers, set in Avast only the most used one. Avast32 Internet Mail plugin is able to send the outgoing mail just through one SMTP server (even in case, that the default setting was to send through more SMTP servers). INI file -------- Subsections that are affiliated with Avast32 Internet Mail plugin are located under the section MailScanner. POP3 and SMTP servers are defined by sections DefaultPopServer and DefaultSmtpServer. The server address can be entered as a number address or as a DNS name. If you wish to use port number too, write it behind : character. The default port numbers are, for POP3:110, and for SMTP:25 . Examples: ; SMTP server address specified by DNS name and port DefaultSmtpServer=oursmtp.domain.com:25 ; POP server address specified by number, with default port selection DefaultPopServer=192.168.1.1 ; POP server address specified by number and port DefaultPopServer=192.168.1.1:110 Section ShowTrayIcon specifies, if the icon of Avast32 Internet Mail plugin should be visible in tray task bar, when it is connected to POP3 or SMTP servers. Value 1 means yes, value 0 no. Section Log specifies the level of logging. Value 0 specifies, that the logging is not active. Value 1 means, that just the basic informations will be entered into the log file. If value 2 is used, all communication between Avast32 Internet Mail plugin and the SMTP and POP3 servers will be logged. Informations are written in AvMailSrvr.log file in LOG directory. Section PassThrough specifies the behavior of Avast32 Internet Mail plugin in situation, when the message could not be tested. If the value of this section is set to 1, Avast32 Internet Mail plugin leaves the messages untested pass through. If 0 value is set,Avast32 Internet Mail plugin will not leave messages through until the resident task is not running. E-mails can therefore pass through only, when the task is running or is paused. In all other cases Avast32 Internet Mail plugin won't allow the mail client the connection to POP3 server, so all e-mails will stay on POP3 server and you may encounter error messages from your e-mail client. Section PopListen and SmtpListen allows to find the network interface, on which the Mail Plugin will be connected. If you have more than one network card adapter in your computer, you can specify just one needed for Mail Plugin. The port number can be specified too. Example: PopListen=192.168.1.208:110 Section Trust allows you to specify the ip-addresses, from which the Avast32 Internet Mail plugin have allowed access .Address can be defined by number ip-address or DNS name. A group of ip-addresses can be defined too, in form ip-address/number of bites allowed. If the Trust section is leaved blank, it allows access from any address. Example: Trust=127.0.0.1,server.domain.com,192.168.1.0/24 Sending and receiving mails --------------------------- You can start usingAvast32 Internet Mail plugin immediately after the successful activation. Try sending the e-mail to yourself. After receiving it, take a look at the headers. It should read: X-Antivirus: Avast32 (VPS 7.70-35), Outgoing message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean X-Antivirus: Avast32 (VPS 7.70-35), Incoming message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean The first two rows are about the sending message. In the first one are the informations about the version of virus database and if it is outgoing or incoming message. The second row is about the scanning results of the file tested. If it is not infected, word Clean should appear, if it is infected, the word Infected would appear instead. If it was not scanned than words "Not tested" will appear. If these messages are not in the headers at all, it probably means, that the massage did not pass through Avast32 Internet Mail plugin. Check than, if there is something in the log file. If you are sure, that the setting is in order and Avast32 Internet Mail plugin is still not working properly than contact the technical support of ALWIL software corporation. If Avast32 Internet Mail plugin finds an infected message, it acts according to setting of the resident task on page Virus Alert. It is suggested to select Choose action interactive selection, so you will be directly informed about the incoming virus. Information about the infection is written in the header and also in the body of the message. Some e-mail clients, e.g. Microsoft Outlook Express, cannot show the part of message, in which are the informations about virus, correctly. So it is suggested to view all of the text attachments first, because one of them can be sent from Avast32 Internet Mail plugin. If you want to find out, whether your mail client view all text attachments together with the message, or whether they are interpreted as an attachment, follow these steps: In task setting on page POP and SMTP check the box Insert note in the clean message. Send a message to yourself with attachment. when the message will arrive, you will see, if the message about the testing will appear in the body or as an attachment. Among the clients, that shows the attachments in the body of the message, is counted for example Eudora and Netscape Communicator. As an attachment displaying software is counted in Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Express. Avast32 Internet Mail plugin tests the body of the message encrypted by BASE64 and UU-encode. By Avast32 Internet Mail plugin these attachments can be repaired or removed. If the virus is found in the body of the message , it also allows you to remove it and change it for information text. The headers will remain, so you can know from who the message is sent, and request the sending of the message again, or you can inform the sender, that he is spreading the virus. FAQ --- After the setting of mail clients, my client tells me, that it cannot contact POP3 or SMTP server? Why? Check, whether the avmaisrv.exe program is running. If not, run it and try again. Installation program sets an automatic startup at the start of the computer. If it is still not starting, add its shortcut to "Startup" menu in Start menu, What is the "Silent mode"? In this mode the resident provider shows no windows. If a virus is found, the specified file is dealt with, according to setting of the task, without the user interfering. If the silent mode is set, make sure, that the setting is logical, e.g. it is nonsense to select "Choose action Know problems ------------- If the internet connection is too small, or the message downloaded is too long, it is possible, that the time, for which the client should remain waiting for response. After this time it automatically disconnects and the message will not be downloaded. In that case it is necessary to download the message from the server directly. The same situation can happen with sending a message. This error will not be repaired , due to the proprieties of the SMTP protocol. If the MIME message is the MULTIPART type, the information text about the virus test is added only in cases, that the subtype is MIXED. That means, that the messages without attachments, which are sent as a HTML or as a plain text, will never include this information text. Fixed Bugs ---------- If the text in the subject of the message is longer than 50 chars., an error is generated. Fixed in version January 2000(translation 219). When downloading the long messages from POP3 server , should be eliminated, that the e-mail client will not show a dialog about the timeout in response waiting. But still is recommended to set the interval to the highest available value. Fixed bug of freezing AvMaiSrv.exe when receiving messages. This bug was very rare. IMAP protocol support --------------------- Avast32 Internet Mail plugin now enables you to check mail downloaded from the IMAP server the same way as mail downloaded from the POP3 server. Both IMAP2 and IMAP4 protocols are supported. Related changes: In the configuration settings of the "Internet Mail" resident provider there is a new tab "IMAP", which is similar to the tab "POP". In the file Avast32.ini in section [MailScanner] new variables "DefaultImapServer" and "ImapListen" can be used. Their meaning is similar to that of the variables "DefaultPopServer" and "PopListen". Default port value for IMAP is 143. The utility "AvPopWiz" was modified to enable mail checking configuration for IMAP accounts too. For manual configuration of IMAP accounts follow the same hints as for POP accounts in chapter "Manual setting". If your mail client downloads the mail message as a whole, the chapter "Sending and receiving mails" applies without changes to IMAP. If it downloads message text and attachments separately (e.g. Eudora), no additional information will be put into the header and the text of the message. The checkbox "Insert note into clean message" in tab "IMAP" in configuration setting will not work in that case.