Email Administration
This page contains information for email administrators @ Clark Internet for your multi-user clients. For information on how users can retrieve email see the email section elsewhere on this site.
To administer your accounts go here. Your Clark Internet representative will provide your username and password.
Upon successful login the system displays a list of domains under your administration.
Proceed cautiously. Make only ONE change per submission until you become familiar with the features.
To administer your accounts go here. Your Clark Internet representative will provide your username and password.
Upon successful login the system displays a list of domains under your administration.
Proceed cautiously. Make only ONE change per submission until you become familiar with the features.
Email Protocols
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) mail is a modern messaging technology that can maintain your mail simultaneously on your own computer and/or on a remote host system called "the IMAP server." You have the option to keep copies in both places, however your provider may limit the amount of mail that can be stored on the server. The solution is to transfer your older mail to folders stored locally on your own computer, reserving the hosted storage for active messaging. Your local software is called an "IMAP client."
POP (Post Office Protocol) mail refers to older email software that may NOT maintain duplicate copies of your mail. When sending, your POP client logs into the shared computer (the POP server) and transfers received mail from your account to your computer. When you send an email message, your POP client transfers it to the host for transmission on the Internet. The local copy is usually the only copy.`
IMAP client programs typically support a richer set of features, such as document attachment, automatic document encoding and decoding, user lookup, internal address books, font selection, signature files, and multiple mail management options. The clear trend is toward replacement of POP by IMAP. Users should contact customer service regarding the POP/IMAP choice.
Please consult your service representative regarding which protocol is right for you.
POP (Post Office Protocol) mail refers to older email software that may NOT maintain duplicate copies of your mail. When sending, your POP client logs into the shared computer (the POP server) and transfers received mail from your account to your computer. When you send an email message, your POP client transfers it to the host for transmission on the Internet. The local copy is usually the only copy.`
IMAP client programs typically support a richer set of features, such as document attachment, automatic document encoding and decoding, user lookup, internal address books, font selection, signature files, and multiple mail management options. The clear trend is toward replacement of POP by IMAP. Users should contact customer service regarding the POP/IMAP choice.
Please consult your service representative regarding which protocol is right for you.
Domain List
After you log in, choose the domain you wish to administer from the domain list. Return to this list at any time by clicking the Browse Domains link. (If you have only one domain the first page will be your account list.) The list appears in groups of ten; click Next/Previous as needed.
User Accounts
You may perform numerous functions on behalf of your users. It is a good idea to test new or modified accounts with (1) Webmail; (2) any POP mail reader.
- Add an Account
- Click Add New Account.
- Type the name of the mailbox (must be unique; only letters, numerals and periods allowed).
- Type or overwrite the quota as appropriate; the user's quota counts against the domain's quota.
- Type and retype the password. They must be identical.
- Click Submit. If all is correct, you may return to the account list; if not go BACK in your browser, correct the data, and resubmit.
- IMPORTANT! Open a new browser window and sign into the new mailbox using Webmail with the username and password you just created. Go to Options:Folders and set the Trash popup to DO NOT USE TRASH. This will help keep the user's mailbox from filling up with junk or unwanted attachments. All deleted messages will be immediately purged. This issue only arises for users who access the system via Webmail; those retrieving their mail via POP readers will not create trash on the server. (Remember to sign out of Webmail.)
- Delete an Account
- From the account list, click the mailbox name.
- On the taskbar, click Delete Account. There is no confirmation; it is simply gone, right now, forever. We didn't do it; you did.
- Create an Account Alias
- An alias or pseudonym can let one mailbox serve several purposes. Imagine that Jack is the sales manager. He wants to receive (1) messages from clients and prospects; (2) messages from other staff members; (3) messages from friends and relatives. You can give jack multiple aliases to accomplish this. First use the Create... procedure above to create a mailbox that is NOT called "jack" at which Jack will retrieve his mail. Let's call it jmain.
- From the account list, click the mailbox name jmain@yourdomain.
- On the upper taskbar click New email address (Alias).
- Type the name of the public name for Jack's role as sales manager, e.g., sales.manager@yourdomain. Save the alias. On the account list, note that Jack's account jmain@... now has two aliases next to it.
- Repeat for, e.g., jstaff@... and jfamily@... and jfriends@... saving each separately.
- Set/change an Account's Storage Quota
- From the account list, click the mailbox name.
- On the taskbar, click Set Quota. On the succeeding page change the value in Quota. This quota counts against the overall quota for the domain.
- Change an Account's Password
- You cannot retrieve an account's password, but you can change it.
- From the account list, click the Password link on the respective line.
- On the taskbar, click Set Quota. On the succeeding page type and retype the new password; the values must match. Save the form. The password has been changed. (A password change is a good way to block access temporarily if you have an issue with a user.)
- Change the Administrator's Password
- You cannot change the administrator's password. If the password is lost or a new admin is appointed, the owner of the domain must contact Clark IP technical support.
- Set Catch-All
- Don't! This makes the selected account the destination for all unknown mailboxes (those not actually created in your list). For most domains it is better simply to let the mail server bounce unknown addresses to the sender, as most will be spam, and the burden for mis-addressed mail should lie with the sender, not with you or your users. Accepting them just encourage the spammer by telling her that the mailbox is real, which in turn gets you more spam, leading you to call technical support, which will only deride you mercilessly for ignoring this instruction. (The catch-all feature is a legacy of a kinder, gentler Internet, when only kind, gentle people sent email.)
Tips and Techniques
- Passwords can be changed but cannot be retrieved.
- You can manage any account in any of your assigned domains.
- An account can have extra virtual mailboxes, called aliases.
- Sometimes it is desirable to have a "role account" for public use, with messages forwarded to an individual. To do this, first create the individual (person) account. Then create the role account and forward it to the person's mailbox. E.g., "sales@DDD" might go to "john@DDD" where "DDD" is your domain.
- Key tricks. Log into each new user account and set Options:Folders to DO NOT USE TRASH (look for it). This omits the need to purge the trash folder. Delete is thus instant.
- All user accounts from external programs or services (POP, Gmail, etc.) must be POP accounts. Your users may not store sent mail or personal folders, even if they appear to be available. We are not a general-purpose email provider; this has been discussed with the account manager. As with all POP accounts, mail is deleted from the server after retrieval to the user's computer.
- Usage. Our biggest problem is people not understanding that they have a quota. Frequent retrieval of mail and deletion of obsolete messages are necessary if the volume received is more than a couple of dozen per day or if the user's messages tend to contain large attachments (if you are receiving "camera dumps" of large graphic files your quotas will rapidly fill up). These should be treated as BUSINESS mailboxes. When we see subject lines about perfume sales and "special offers" in a business account we find ourselves not caring when the user has a problem.
- Volume Considerations. Webmail is a pretty good email program but does not have a full range of modern features. We do not support vast storage for users; we only have small POP accounts.
- Alternatives. If someone needs a large archive we suggest Gmail with "external" accounts set up there, turning our system into a forwarding service. For online archive we suggest Gmail, which supports remote POP access. All you need do is set up a POP account to read from mailbox.domainname.TLD and a Send As account. Gmail will then automatically replace the Gmail identity with your mailbox at your domain. Gmail will retrieve the mail.clark-ip.com account and you can access mail at Gmail via the web or via any standard email program. Note that once on the other system it's gone from Clark IP.
- Additional paid training for email administrators is available.
Policies
Our policy for free accounts is that if total storage exceeds 90% of system capacity we will delete messages from over-limit accounts oldest first to maintain service and performance. For paid accounts the storage maxima are defined by special agreement.
Notes
Note: The domain and account lists are slow to display. Just wait for the complete list. This might be a good time for a coffee break. We use it, but we didn't make it.
- Team Clark IP