EMAIL SERVICES

Internet technologies come and go, but e-mail is still the universal 'killer app' that brings the most people to the internet. It is an accepted truth that successful web sites are those that provide easy communication with its visitors. With this in mind, an effective e-mail framework is as important to a site as the site's content itself.

Before setting out to set up the e-mail addresses for your website, a working knowledge of the workings of the mechanics of e-mail is a prerequisite. The following is a primer of terms and technologies that comprise the e-mail system and a quick guide to configuring your e-mail software to use the MediaHostNet mail services.

POP3 Mailboxes

POP3 is 'Post Office Protocol, version 3' - a system that receives mail delivered over the net, and stores it in a mailbox, to be collected by the owner at a later time. All e-mail delivered over the internet must eventually arrive at an e-mail address attached to a POP mailbox. It is worth noting that while not all e-mail addresses are POP accounts (see below), all e-mail must eventually find its way to a POP mailbox. While you may have many address you can receive e-mail at, it is often best to keep the number of POP mailboxes you own to a minimum, in the interests of manageability.

POP mail clients - Although your mailboxes are accessible through webmail (see below) to obtain the full benefit of them, we recommend you make use of a POP capable e-mail client. AOL users take note that the AOL e-mail client is not POP capable. Here is a short list of common POP capable e-mail clients: (the following should not be construed as commercial endorsements by MediaHostNet.):

• Qualcomm Eudora
• Microsoft Outlook Express
• Microsoft Outlook
• Netscape Communicator
• Pegasus Mail
• Claris Mail

POP mailboxes - When your account is activated, your first POP account is activated with it; and it uses the same login and password. The e-mail address for it is yourlogin@yourdomain.com - additional POP mailboxes may be added through the control panel (as many as your account allows). Note that the login name of these mailboxes will be slightly different from the e-mail address itself.

POP Settings - To configure your client to receive mail delivered to your POP mailbox, consult the following table: (Please take note that not all mail clients will use these exact names for their configuration fields. If your mail client is significantly different from this, enter a support request with the names of the fields from your mail client's configuration screen)

• e-mail address / mailbox address :- Enter the e-mail address of the POP account
• login id / account name :- Enter the login name of the POP account - your first POP account will have the same login ID as your server login. Additional POP account will have a different login ID from the e-mail address*. When you create new POP accounts through the cpanel, you will be told the login ID that corresponds to the e-mail address of the address**.

*Make sure you use the full email address for the login for any email account created after the default account. For example, for              yourdomain.com, the default login ID would be yourdoma (same as cpanel login, all default usernames are first eight characters of the domain), you would just use yourdoma as the login ID for the email client.  For bob@yourdomain.com, a newly created POP3 account (created through your online control panel), you would use bob@yourdomain.com

**Netscape Users: If you experience a problem with using the full email address as the login name, replace the "@" in the login, with a "%".  Example, bob@yourdomain.com would be bob%yourdomain.com.  This lets netscape use the full email address correctly as the login ID.
 

• password :- Enter the password you entered when you created the pop account. Your first POP account has the same password as your main server login ID does.
• pop server/incoming mail server :-mail.your-domain.com (alter this according to your domain name)
• port :- Set this to '110' (usually this is already entered automatically and need not be changed)

Other settings such as 'name', 'reply-to address' and 'organization' may be filled with any value you deem appropriate; they will not directly affect the functionality of your POP mailbox

SMTP

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol has been the heart of internet e-mail for the greater portion of its operational life. Whereas POP may be likened to a mailbox, SMTP is the postal system itself, responsible for delivery of e-mail between locations on the internet. Your e-mail client must support SMTP (of note is the AOL client, which does not). The SMTP server takes your outgoing mail and delivers it to its destination on the internet (a POP3 mailbox usually).

Your account has use of SMTP service, so you may send as well as receive e-mail through your domain. To send mail through your domain , adjust the settings for the SMTP server in your e-mail client. Enter your domain name [or its IP address] as your new SMTP server. Mail you send will now go through your domain instead of through your ISP. This is entirely optional, there is no necessity that you use the MediaHostNet servers as your SMTP servers. If you are happy using your ISP's SMTP server to send mail through you may do so; we provide SMTP service as a courtesy service to complete our e-mail services.

SMTP settings :- to configure your mail client to send mail through your MediaHostNet's account, consult the following table.
(Please take note that not all mail clients will use these exact names for their configuration fields. If your mail client is significantly different from this, enter a support request with the names of the fields from your mail client's configuration screen)

• SMTP Server/Outgoing mail server :-mail.your-domain.com (alter this according to your domain name)
• login id / account name / authentication :-Our SMTP servers do not require a login, leave these fields blank
• port :- Set this to '25' (usually this is already entered automatically and need not be changed)

Authorizing to relay :- Before the SMTP server will allow you to send mail to an e-mail address outside of your domain, you must identify yourself to the server by check a POP mailbox. After you check a mailbox for new mail you have thirty minutes in which to send outgoing e-mail, or until you disconnect from the internet. This is necessary to prevent the abuse of your SMTP service by bulk commercial e-mailer's (`spammers`) and is implemented for your legal protection.

You need to make have server authentication enabled.
If you are using Outlook it would look something like this:

With "My server requires authentication" checked in outlook and the correct login ID (see POP3 section above) you will be able to send mail correctly and securely.

If while sending e-mail you receive a 'you are not authorized to relay..` message from the server, and you are certain you have have checked a mailbox on your server immediately beforehand, contact tech support to have the issue resolved.

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The following section summarizes e-mail features that are specific to MediaHostNet's services.

Default address

Mail delivered to your domain will be matched against a list of existing e-mail addresses you have created. If none are found matching the e-mail will be delivered to this default address. When your account is created, this default address will be your primary POP mailbox (yourlogin@yourdomain.com). You may change this default address at any time through the control panel. The significance of the default address is that any e-mail with an add '@yourdomain.com' will be delivered somewhere - if mail is addressed to a nonexistant address at your server, instead of being bounced to the sender, it will instead arrive at the default address, allowing you to take action as appropriate.

Forwarders

A forwarder address is an e-mail address without a mailbox. Mail received by this address will be forwarded on to the e-mail address you associate with it. The primary upshot of this is to allow you to receive e-mail @yourdomain.com without creating another POP mailbox to manage; incoming mail can instead be forwarded on to your existing mailbox, most likely the one you received from your dialup internet service provider or your address at your place of business.

You may set up unlimited forwarder addresses through the control panel - this is often preferable to creating a POP mailbox , which are limited in number and should be reserved for those situations where circumstances require a full mailbox to hold delivered mail.

Auto Responders

Auto Responders are forwarding addresses with one difference; for every e-mail delivered to them, they will automatically return an e-mail to the sender with no action on your part. The content of this e-mail and the address associated with it may be configured in the control panel. You may set up an unlimited number of auto responder addresses.

Take note: Email sent to the auto responder will be delivered to the default address. Submit a support request to have the destination address changed if this is not satisfactory to your needs.

Blockers

Your mailbox is like a telephone line, you have the right to privacy and be free from harassing callers. Similarly there are people on the internet you do not wish to receive e-mail from. Entering their address into your blockers list will cause the mail server to quietly delete e-mail received from these addresses, as though it had never been received.

Mailing lists

Mailing lists provide a convenient way to send mail to multiple recipients, and to provide a medium for your site's visitor's to discuss relevant topics over e-mail , without them needing to know more than one address (the list address)

You may create new mailing lists in the control panel, A List address must be chosen, it is good practice to give a name to your list, and create a list address of the form listname@yourdomain.com. (there are various options that may be set for the list's operation, these are covered in the control panel section of this user manual.

To receive a summary of instructions for using your mailing list, activate the list address (in control panel) and send an e-mail message to the list address, with the subject line of 'HELP' (without the quote marks). A short summary of commands understood by the mailing list software will be returned to you.

To subscribe to the mailing list, an e-mail message must be sent to the List address, which the subject line containing either 'SUBSCRIBE LIST' or 'SUBSCRIBE DIGEST'. Anyone doing this will be subscribed to the mailing list, and will receive a copy of all messages sent to the list.

To send an e-mail to people subscribed to your mailing list , address it to the list address - everyone on the list of subscribers will receive a copy of the message.

There are two ways to be subscribed to a mailing list. By subscribing with 'SUBSCRIBE LIST' you will receive each e-mail sent to the list, as an individual e-mail; by subscribing with DIGEST, e-mails will be grouped together, and send out when either a certain number of e-mails has accumulated in the list queue, or a certain number of days/hours has been reached. The manner in which your mailing list handles digest subscriptions is determined by you when you activate the mailing list in the control panel.

Webmail

The control panel includes functionality for reading e-mail received by your POP mailboxes over the web, without an e-mail client. Because of security issues, this is only available through the control panel directly and will only be usable by yourself or people you have entrusted with access to the control panel login/password.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter trouble with your e-mail settings there are several things you can check before submitting a support request :

Addresses must be unique - An e-mail address can only exist in one category. If it is a POP mailbox, it cannot be entered as a forwarder or auto responder. Check that you have not set the same address up in a different category

Is mail send the address bouncing to the sender? - If mail send to an address is being returned to the sender, ask for a copy of the returned e-mail (or generate one by sending an e-mail to the faulty address). Often we cannot begin to resolve e-mail problems without the vital error information contained in these returned messages.

Take note of error messages returned by your e-mail client - As above, these are vital to resolving problems and including the exact message in your support request will expedite resolution.

For further instructions on configuring your domain's e-mail settings, consult the Control Panel section of this user manual.