Frequently Asked Questions:

Select: Personal Email FAQ | Email Administrator FAQ

EMAIL ADMINISTRATOR FAQ:

Q: Does ActivatorMail help my bandwidth and server performance?

A: Yes. Roughly 50-60% of email today is spam and viruses messages may be as high as 3-5%. These are handled at our data center so this never impacts your server. Thus, your mail server may have as much as 60-70% of its bandwidth and processor restored!
Q: What is a 'MX' record?

A: Short for Mail eXchange record, an entry in a domain name server (DNS) that identifies the mail server that is responsible for handling emails for that domain name. Usually MX DNS records can be changed by your email administrator. When more than one MX record is entered for any single domain name that is using more than one mail server, the MX record can be prioritized with a preference number that indicates the order in which the mail servers should be used. This enables the use of primary and backup mail servers.
Q: Can I lose email while switching to ActivatorMail?

A: No email is lost when switching to ActivatorMail. Changing the MX record is simple and all email will begin to route through ActivatorMail with no apparent change in the delivery to the end user.
Q: Can I have a Spam folder similar to Yahoo and HotMail for my business?

A: Yes. We may configure whole servers or domains to display all captured messages in a special Spam folder in a web mail account if you are concerned about false positives or the potential for capture of legitimate emails. This is similar to Yahoo 'Bulk' or HotMail 'Spam' folders. We may also forward all filtered and captured emails to a particular email account that you specify.
Q: What is open-relay?

A: For historical reasons, many SMTP mail servers will accept mail for email domains other than their own, and forward it on to the intended recipient. Third-party relay, also known as "open relay" or "insecure relay" is where a mail server will route mail for anybody in the world. Any machine which will accept mail for any domain and forward it on regardless of who the sender is or what IP address the mail is sent from is generally called an 'open-relay'

Spammers hunt for and abuse these servers to try to cover their tracks, because they know their spam is unwelcome and unwanted. When spammers locate such a machine they can use it as a free distribution service for their junk email. This process very often ends in your IP/domain being blacklisted.
Q: What does open-relay mean to me?

A: We need you to make sure your SMTP server does not allow open-relay, because if it does, you can be used as a Spam gateway. Most current SMTP servers and firewalls allow you to restrict SMTP relay either by IP number (so you only accept mail from ActivatorMail IP numbers) or by domain (so you reject mail destined for domains other than your own).
Q: How can I check if my mail server is an open-relay?

A:there is a network tool provided by abuse, http://www.abuse.net/relay.html that will automatically test your mail server for relay security. You will need to register with them to be able to perform these tests, but registration is quite a straightforward process.
Q: What will happen if I don't secure my server properly?

A: If appropriate security measures are not put in place then various individuals will use these insecure mail servers as a portal onto the 'net from which they can inject literally thousands of emails to email addresses all over the Net. This is annoying for the recipients and means that you are providing free mail service to the Spammer. If you are particularly unlucky the Spammer may overload your machine or run it out of disk space causing it to fail.

There are also several self-appointed anti-Spam organisations on the 'net who will put you on a blacklist if you have a mail server that is open to this sort of abuse. If one of our customers gets put on a blacklist, we may also be put on the blacklist due to the way our mail systems scan your outbound mail. We obviously need to avoid this, as it may cause us to be unable to deliver mail from all of our customers to certain recipients who subscribe to these blacklists. For this reason, if you are unable to secure your mail server promptly, we may have to temporarily stop scanning your outbound mail until the problem can be fixed.
Q: How should I set up our MX records?

A: Correct configuration of MX records is essential to ensure that all your email is scanned. A typical set of MX records before being modified to use ActivatorMail Servers may look like this:

Your-domain.com mail is handled (pri=10) by mailhost.your-domain.com
Your-domain.com mail is handled (pri=20) by relay.your-isp.com

To scan your email, we need to make sure it is all directed via our scanning servers. To do this, we direct the lowest cost MX record to the particular ActivatorMail Server.

For example:

Your-domain.com IN MX 10 mail (server number).activatormail.com
Your-domain.com IN MX 20 mail (server number).activatormail.com

It is important that your own mailhost (mailhost.your-domain.com in this example) is not included anywhere in the MX records. If it is, some mail may occasionally be delivered directly to your mail server and hence not get scanned.

If you are uncertain about how to configure your MX records, or require further advice please contact ActivatorMail Support.

 
Additional Documents:

Glossary:

What is a Mail Server Virus Vulnerability? - A vulnerability that can cause problems (such as a virus that can run automatically) when malicious email is sent to certain mail clients, like Microsoft Outlook. A mailserver virus scanner will not be able to detect viruses that are in these vulnerabilities. Therefore, it is very important that mailserver AV programs detect these vulnerabilities.
What is SMTP? - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol; the standard rules that many email clients use to handle outgoing email messages.
What is POP3? - Post Office Protocol version 3; the standard rules that many email clients use to handle incoming email messages.
What is MIME? - Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions; a format for turning an email attachment, such as a Microsoft Word file, into ASCII text so it can be sent from one email account to another.
What is SPAM or UCE? - Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE), better known as Spam, is the email usually showing up uninvited in your email. Most of this spam are unsolicited advertisements.
What is a Blacklist or a Whitelist? - Blacklists are lists of email addresses of known spammers, and whitelists are lists of email addresses of senders whose email should be allowed through spam filters even if it appears to be spam.
What is an Email Header? - Email headers are the lines at the top of an email message that are used by servers on the Internet as they deliver the message. Your email program normally shows you only the standard To:, From:, Subject:, and Date: headers, but there are more.
What is a Message Tag? - A Message Tag is information that is added to your message header by ActivatorMail. This does not alter your email content and may be viewed in the hidden message header. Message Tags reveal more details about the origin of each message.
What is Phishing? - Phishing is the practice of sending fraudulent emails that falsely warns consumers that there's a problem with an order or credit card, in an attempt to dupe them into providing personal and credit card information. Phishing expeditions spoof, or fake, the identity of a legitimate merchant, and both the email and the web site it refers to mimics the exact look and feel of the real merchant's site.






 
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