Small Packages: Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ's and "how-to's" related to running your own web site at Small Packages

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December 28, 2004

Managing Your E-Mail

It's very important to keep on top of your e-mail. Many people don't seem to realise that the spaced used for mailboxes is part of their disk allocation. I've seen people use up their whole hosting account on e-mail! There are a few things to remember :
1. There is no ceiling on the size of your default mailbox. If you don't clear down your e-mail, either by downloading it or logging in via webmail and deleting it, your mailbox grows and grows until you run out of disk space. When you run out of disk space you don't get any more mail messages, instead they hang around on the server, slowing it down. In addition every time a message doesn't get delivered to you a return message is generated to the sender telling them your mailbox is full. If the message is from a legitimate address this isn't such a big problem but if you are getting a lot of spam the chances are the sender's address is spoofed meaing that the server is unable to deliver the reply. This also sits on the mail queue, slowing down the server even more. The server will try to deliver messages in the mail queue for about a week before it discards them.

2. Enable SpamAssassin via cPanel. It's very good at weeding out spam. Do bear in mind though that you need to clear down your spam folder (viewable via Horde or Neomail) otherwise it will grow and grow until it uses up all the space in your account, or your mailbox if you have set up a named mailbox with a finite space limit.

3. If you use webmail to send mail clear down your Sent Mail folders. This sits on the server using part of your space allocation until you delete it.

4. As well as using SpamAssassin you can dump a lot of spam by setting the default mail address, as outlined in this tutorial

Posted by ShelaghG at December 28, 2004 06:47 PM

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