Part 3 - E-Mail and Web Control Panel

Accessing Your E-mail
We have implemented a mail feature to stop unauthorized users from using our SMTP servers. Before you can send out any e-mails, you MUST first login and check for mail. NOTE: You only need to check the POP server once per day.

For most users, this change will be transparent. Generally, when you activate most e-mail programs, it immediately checks for e-mail.

Setup instructions for various e-mail programs are as follows:

Eudora
We recommend using Eudora as your e-mail client. This is a mail program that runs under MS Windows and Macintosh OS. Eudora connects to the mail server over Winsock or Macintosh TCP/IP. Mail may be composed and read offline, but make sure that Winsock or TCP/IP is running before attempting to send or receive e-mail. Although your account exists on our server, you won't be able to receive e-mail at yourname@yourdomain.com until your domain name resolves correctly to the IP address we assigned you - make sure your DNSs (Domain Name Servers) have been set to the ones listed at the bottom here.

After Eudora has been installed, it must be configured to point to your server. To do this, start Eudora and select "Settings" from the menu bar. Most of the options are self-explanatory. Here are the steps you need to perform to setup Eudora:

PC Users

Install and start up the Eudora program
Select "Options" from the "Tools" menu
Select the "Getting Started" category
Under "POP account", enter yourdomain@yourdomain.com
Under "Real name", enter your name (i.e., John Smith)
Leave "Return address" blank unless you want people to send return e-mail to you at a different e-mail account
Under "Connection Method", select Winsock (Network, PPP, SLIP)

Macintosh Users

The radio button for TCP/IP connection should be highlighted
Click the "Personal Information" tab
Under "POP Account" put yourdomain@yourdomain.com
Fill out the "Real Name" and "Return Address"
Under "Dialup User Name" enter yourdomain (do not enter .com or .net here)
Click the "Hosts" tab, enter yourdomain@yourdomain.com again under "POP Account", and put yourdomain.com under SMTP Server
Go to the "Checking Mail" tab and make sure "Save Password" is checked.

That's pretty much all the configuration Eudora needs. Many of the configuration areas will be filled in when you go to them. For instance, the POP account info will usually be completed wherever needed after you enter it the first time. Now, when you select "Check Mail" under the File menu, a window will pop up asking for your password. Enter your password, then click on the proceed button, and Eudora will check to see if you have e-mail. You can now send a test e-mail message to yourself and then check to see if it gets returned to you. If you checked "Save Password," Eudora will not prompt you again for your password after the first time. If multiple users have access to your computer, and you don't want them to have access to your e-mail account, make sure "Save Password" is unchecked.

Your default e-mail address is yourdomain@yourdomain.com, and that's where all your e-mail will be sent, unless other configurations take priority (such as autoresponders and redirects, mentioned later).

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Microsoft Internet Mail
The following information is required to set up Microsoft Internet Mail:

Full name
E-mail
Internet Mail server
Account
Password
Smtp

If your domain name were mystore.com and your username was homer, then the information would look like:

Full name = homer
E-mail = homer@mystore.com
Internet Mail server = mystore.com
Account = homer
Pass = xxxxxxxx
Smtp = mystore.com

If you have a third-level domain, you will use ThirdLevelName.mystore.com instead of just mystore.com.

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Netscape
The following information is required to setup Netscape:

Your Name
E-mail Address
Reply to
Mail Server User Name
Outgoing Smtp
Incoming

If your domain name were mystore.com and your username was bart, then the information would look like:

Your Name = bart
E-mail Address = bart@mystore.com
Reply to =
Mail Server User Name = bart
Outgoing Smtp = mystore.com
Incoming = mystore.com

If you have a third-level domain, you will use ThirdLevelName.mystore.com instead of just mystore.com. You can leave "Reply to" blank.

To check numerous POP accounts, read the manual or help files that come with Eudora or your e-mail client software for configuration.

If you are familiar with the shell programs "pine" and "mail", you can use either of these to check and send e-mail as well.

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Additional Users on Your Domain
You can have additional accounts setup within your own account. By adding an FTP or Telnet account and restricting it to a directory of your main account, you have setup an additional account. These will have their own /home and /www directories. The additional user will only have access to their directory.

Additional FTP and Telnet accounts are setup thru the Web Control Panel. You may need to purchase an additional FTP or Telnet account first in order for us to unlock the Web Control Panel. Use the following parameters to setup these accounts:

yourdomain.com

their unique username

their unique password

their unique username@yourdomain.com

yourdomain.com

NOTE: You can only restrict access to a directory (i.e., http://www.yourdomain.com/yourclient) and not a subdirectory (i.e., http://www.yourdomain.com/yourclient/subdirectory).

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Power PlusMail System
The sophisticated mailing system called Power PlusMail System is included with all Linux accounts.

Web Control Panel
The Web Control Panel enables you to control all aspects of your Web presence from a web browser.

You can:

view total traffic usage
download raw data access log files
setup all POP, FTP and Telnet accounts
change passwords for POP, FTP and Telnet accounts
setup parked domains
setup chat rooms
setup MySQL databases
setup and manage e-mail redirects
setup and manage autoresponders
setup and manage mail lists
setup and manage subscribable mail lists

As well as:

password-protect directories
use basic Unix commands from your web browser
change file and directory permissions
upload your files
rename files
edit your web site

To access the Web Control Panel, go to

http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/plusmail

WARNING: When setting up your POP, FTP and Telnet accounts, do NOT submit the same username more than once. This will corrupt the file; not allowing you to use the account even though it will appear on the "User Manager" screen. Submit the account once; wait 15 minutes and then re-check the "User Manager" screen. If it is not there, press your "Refresh" or "Reload" button.

Also, the username MUST be unique to the server. If you get the following error message: "The userid you requested is already in use by someone on this server. Please select another. Use the back button on your browser to correct the error", you will need to select a different login. You can always setup a redirect for the original login you wanted to go to the login you ended up creating. The reason for this error message is because the mail servers are operated in a shared environment. If, for example, the POP "sales" is already taken, and you definitely want to have "sales", then just create a "redirect" called "sales" and have it redirected to any other address(es) you want. To setup your redirects, login to your Web Control Panel and click on "Email Forwarding," then follow the instructions provided.

NOTE: Due to the unique security requirements of the Web Control Panel, you MUST have your browser set to allow cookies. This, in conjunction with a number of hidden verification systems, assures you are the only user allowed to access these features on your domain. It is also recommended that you do not operate any other web-based applications when accessing the web control panel.

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E-mail Redirects (Forwarding)
The fastest and simplest way to set up your e-mail redirects is to use your Web Control Panel. To access it, go to http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/plusmail and click on "Email Forwarding." Follow the instructions provided.

You can also set these up manually. There is a file in your home (root) directory called ".redirect". This file can be edited and re-uploaded. Just make sure that each of your redirects is on its own line, with a space between the name and where you want it redirected. Don't add empty lines between entries, and make sure the file is saved in ASCII (text) format and uploaded in ASCII (not binary) format. When you download it to your hard drive, you will see that it already has a one-line entry that looks like this:

default yourdomain@yourdomain.com

By leaving this line in, any e-mail ending with @yourdomain.com will be sent to yourdomain@yourdomain.com.

NOTE: You may remove the default line in the .redirect file and bounce all e-mail that is not separately listed. This will allow you to eliminate many of the spam messages that come in under odd aliases.

The following is an example of a ".redirect" file:

In this example, all e-mail sent to homer@yourdomain.com would be redirected to H.Simpson@nuclear.com. All e-mail sent to bart@yourdomain.com would be redirected to MaskedAvenger@notatschool.org. Any other e-mail addressed to your domain would go to yourdomain@yourdomain.com.

The benefit of PlusMail redirects is that you don't need a separate POP account for each e-mail address you want to use in your domain. You can put in your web pages, "Send e-mail to help@yourdomain.com" without the need to create a separate entry in the .redirect file because ALL e-mail goes by default to yourdomain@yourdomain.com, unless "help" is specified to go somewhere else.

Multiple redirection is possible. For instance, if you want e-mail to go to two addresses at the same time, enter the different e-mails with a comma to separate them (no spaces). For example:

help jane@hotmail.com,mike@yahoo.com,chan@china.com NOTE: You may only forward up to a maximum of four e-mail addresses in the .redirect and they must be listed on a single line. If more than four forwarding addresses are needed, use the mail lists directory.

E-mail redirects can be used in conjunction with autoresponders to return an error message to people sending e-mails to invalid e-mail addresses on your domain. This autoresponder could send back an error message like, "Oops, you reached an invalid address, please try again." Refer to the Autoresponders section below for instruction on how to implement this.

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Autoresponders (Infobots)
An autoresponder is a simple way of setting up an e-mail address that will return a message automatically when someone sends e-mail to it.

PLEASE NOTE: Do NOT name your autoresponder the same as a POP e-mail. Neither will work properly if they have the same name.

The fastest and simplest way to set up your autoresponders is to use your Web Control Panel. To access it, go to http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/plusmail, login and select on "Autoresponders," then follow the directions provided.

You can also set them up as follows:

In your root (home) directory, there is a directory called "infobots". Set up a welcome message in this directory. You can name it anything you like, but for our example we'll call it "info". Don't call it "info.txt" � just name it "info" without any extension. The text for the welcome message could say:
Now, whenever someone sends e-mail to info@yourdomain.com, they will automatically receive that text e-mail message at whatever e-mail address they specified as their return-to address.
To see who is using the infobot, assuming your infobot address is info@example.com, just put the following line in your .redirect file: info example@example.com. The original e-mail message will be sent to example@example.com, and the original sender will get the infobot text.

NOTE: Be sure to put the text file in the infobot directory before modifying your .redirect file, or the infobot will not work.

You can have as many autoresponders as you want. Just save them all in the infobots directory, and give them each a unique name between 3-16 characters long.

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Simple Mail list
The fastest and simplest way to set up a mail list is to use your Web Control Panel. To access it, go to http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/plusmail, login and select "Mail Lists," then follow the directions provided.

You can also create a mail list manually as follows:

To make a mail list, create a simple text file, one address per line. For example:
You can put up to 1000 names in the list.
Once you are done creating the list, go to your home directory and put the list in the subdirectory, maillists. The list may be named anything you like. Name your file without an extension (clients is correct; clients.txt is incorrect).

To send mail to the list, just type the list-filename@yourdomain.com. For example, if your domain name is "mystore.com" and your mail list filename is "clients", you would e-mail "clients@mystore.com".

NOTE: Your mail list, autoresponder, and .redirect files cannot have the same filename.

To password-protect your mail lists, add the desired password to the first line of the mail list and whenever you send mail to the list, put this password as the first line of the text message.

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Subscribable Mail lists
With a subscribable mail list, you can offer your clients a monthly newsletter, sales updates or just a friendly hello. Your clients can easily subscribe to your list via e-mail. The PlusMail System is capable of multiple lists, so you can organize the information your customers may be looking for. There is a limit of 1,000 subscribers per list, and you can e-mail a message up to 75k.

The fastest and simplest way to set up a subscribable mail list is to use your Web Control Panel. To access it, go to http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/plusmail, login and select "Mail Lists, then select "Subscribable Mail Lists" and follow the directions provided.

You can also create your subscribable mail list manually as follows:

Setup a welcome message in the infobot directory. You can name it anything you like, but for our example we'll call it "welcome".

The text file could say:
This message will be automatically returned to the sender each time someone subscribes.
Now you need to setup a configuration file to tell the mail system to build a mailing list. In your infobot directory, create a file called "infolist". This is used to tell the system what to do with addresses received from each infobot response. You can have as many lists as you want. But in keeping with the list example above, we will call it mlist.

Here's what the file should look like:
The first line should have a space between the two names and be uploaded in ASCII format, not binary.

You can have multiple lists, such as mlist1, mlist2, etc., but you should only have one configuration file. It must be called "infolist". To handle all three examples, you'd make the infolist file look like this, with each listserver on its own line and no blank lines in between:
Now when someone wants to subscribe to your list in the above example, they will e-mail welcome@yourdomain.com. This will return the infobot called "welcome" and put their e-mail address into the mailing list file in the maillists directory on your server. You can go in and download the maillist file after it has been created and people have subscribed. The mailing list file will be created AFTER the first person subscribes, or if you yourself send e-mail to "welcome@yourdomain.com" to test it. Put yourself on the mailing list to try this. People don't need to subscribe themselves - you can add their names for them, or remove them at any time by modifying and uploading the file in the maillists directory. People cannot automatically unsubscribe themselves. You must go in and manually remove their e-mail address from the list.
Now when you want to send mail to all subscribers, you can send e-mail to mlist@yourdomain.com and the PlusMail system will send it to the entire list.
If you want to see who is subscribing to your mail list without having to go and check the mail lists file periodically via FTP, you can put a line in your .redirect file. NOTE: it is important that you have the infobot installed before entering the address line in the .redirect. For the mlist example we used above, the line you would add would look like this:
The welcome document you created will be sent to the subscriber, AND you will receive their e-mail message.

NOTE: When sending e-mail to your list for the first time, you will get the autoresponder reply immediately, but you may not see the corresponding mail list file right away, as our system takes time to build it. Wait 15 to 30 minutes and it will show up. (Depending on the time of day and current traffic conditions, our servers may be allocating it to lower priority.)

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Majordomo Listserver (add-on feature)
Majordomo Listserver is an add-on feature that requires an additional monthly fee. If you wish to have a Majordomo Listserver activated, complete the Order Add-on Features form.

The form asks for your Majordomo List Name. Make sure it has a different name than the name of your domain. For instance, if your domain were "mystore.com", you could request "mystoredomo".

Once we have set up your Majordomo listserver, you can get help by sending e-mail to majordomo@yourdomain.com. On the first line of your e-mail, just type the word "HELP". You will be sent a general help file. If you want more detailed instructions on using Majordomo, e-mail the autoresponder at domo@safe-order.net.

Another great resource for Majordomo information is http://www.greatcircle.com/majordomo/majordomo.manual.txt.

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SquirrelMail

To access SquirrelMail on your account, go to http://YourDomainName.com/webmail/

SquirrelMail is a standards-based webmail package written in PHP4. It includes built-in pure PHP support for the IMAP and SMTP protocols, and all pages render in pure HTML 4.0 (with no Javascript) for maximum compatibility across browsers. SquirrelMail has all the functionality you would want from an email client, including strong MIME support, address books, and folder manipulation. Check out the SquirrelMail site for more info: SquirrelMail

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