December 28, 2004
Managing Your E-Mail
Category: Email
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 06:47 PM | Comments (0)
December 24, 2004
Avoiding Spam By Setting The Default Mail Address
Category: Email
Spam is an ever-increasing problem but there are some steps you can take to avoid it. When your hosting account is set up a mailbox is created with the address username@yourdomain.com*. Any mail addressed to your domain is automatically routed to this mailbox, so e-mails addressed to webmaster@yourdomain.com, anyone@yourdomain.com or ahgdgcjhg@yourdomain.com will all end up in this mailbox, this is your default mail address. 99.9% of this will be spam; spammers don't need to know your e-mail address, they just need to know your domain name. Of course you can enable SpamAssassin which is very good at weeding out the spam but this means that your spam folder gets full very quickly. Whilst this doesn't count against your mailbox space, it does count against your disk space. If you don't clear it out very regularly you can soon end up with a spam folder that's used up all your web space. It quickly gets tedious logging into your webspace every day and clearing hundreds of messages from your spam folder.
There's a more efficient way to get rid of spam as soon as it hits your mail box. The first step is to set up a new mailbox which will only catch e-mail explicitly addressed to it, eg, yourname@yourdomain.com. Any mail not addressed to this e-mail address will be routed to the default mail address. The second step is to tell the default mail address what to do with e-mail that gets routed there. If you have already created additional e-mail accounts you can skip the first step.
To create a new e-mail account log into cPanel; in the E-Mail category click Manage Accounts
This will take you to the Mail Account Maintenance window. You will see a list of your e-mail accounts. If you have already created additional e-mail accounts they will be listed here, in addition to the default mail address. (click to enlarge)
Click Add Mail Account to create a new account. This will take you to the Add Mail Account window where you can enter the details of the new e-mail account. (click to enlarge)
When you have entered the details of the account your screen will look like this (click to enlarge); click Create to create the new e-mail account.
You will be told that the account has been created. Click Go Back to return to the main Mail Account Maintenance window. (click to enlarge)
In the Mail Account Maintenance window you will see that your new account has been added to the list of e-mail accounts. (click to enlarge)
Click Go Back to return to the main cPanel window. In the E-Mail category click Default Address. This will take you to the Default Address Maintenance window where it will tell you what is being done with all unrouted mail. It will say that it's being routed to username, ie, the default mailox. Click Set Default Address (Click to enlarge)
In the Default Address Maintenance window you can see it gives you a couple of suggestions on what to do with unrouted mail. You can either send it to a "blackhole", ie, delete it, or you can "bounce" it - this option will generate a reply to the sender that the e-mail address they used doesn't exist. If you elect to send all your unrouted mail to a blackhole the server has to download it to the server then delete it. If you elect to bounce it the server checks the address the e-mail is being sent to and replies with a failed message before the e-mail is downloaded. It's better to bounce it. In the "to" box type :fail: no such address here and click the Change button. (Click to enlarge)
You will be taken to a window confirming the new action to be taken with unrouted mail (Click to enlarge)
Click Go Back to return to the main Default Address Maintenance window. You will see that unrouted mail is no longer being sent to username but :fail: no such address here (Click to enlarge)
*This has changed since April 2005. All new accounts are created with the default mail address set to :fail: no such address here
Posted by ShelaghG at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)