Note

You are viewing the documentation for an older release of Interworx (6.x). To see documentation for the current generally available release of Interworx, click here: 7.13.

How to: Edit SMTP Settings

Start/Stop/Restart the SMTP Inbound Service

This service corresponds to the qmail-smtpd program. This is the service that listens to TCP port 25 and receives mail from other MTA’s.

  1. Click the System Services menu item if it is not already open.

  2. Click the Mail Server menu item if it is not already open.

  3. Click the MTA Settings menu item.

  4. Locate the SMTP Inbound Control interface.

  5. Click Start/Stop/Restart depending on the action you’d like to perform.

Start/Stop/Restart the SMTP Inbound Service from the Command Line

Command-line control requires root access through a terminal or SSH session. The SMTP Inbound service is managed and monitored by the daemontools software suite. The svc program is used to signal stops, starts, and restarts.

# Start
[root@server ~]# svc -u /service/smtp

# Stop
[root@server ~]# svc -d /service/smtp

# Restart
[root@server ~]# svc -t /service/smtp

# Check Status
[root@server ~]# svstat /service/smtp

Start/Stop/Restart the SMTP Outbound Service

This service corresponds to the qmail-send program. This is the service receives mail from the qmail-smtpd program and delivers it to the correct local mailbox. It also receives mail injected from a local mailbox and sends it to the remote delivery program. That is why it’s refereed to as the “SMTP outbound” service in InterWorx, but really can be considered the main “traffic cop” when it comes to mail management, directing mail traffic to where it needs to go.

  1. Click the System Services menu item if it is not already open.

  2. Click the Mail Server menu item if it is not already open.

  3. Click the MTA Settings menu item.

  4. Click the MTA Settings menu item.

  5. Click Start/Stop/Restart depending on the action you’d like to perform.

Start/Stop/Restart the SMTP Outbound Service from the Command Line

Command-line control requires root access through a terminal or SSH session. The SMTP Outbound service is managed and monitored by the daemontools software suite. The svc program is used to signal stops, starts, and restarts.

# Start
[root@server ~]# svc -u /service/send

# Stop
[root@server ~]# svc -d /service/send

# Restart
[root@server ~]# svc -t /service/send

# Check Status
[root@server ~]# svstat /service/send

Procedure - Change the Mail Server Hostname

  1. Click the System Services menu item if it is not already open.

  2. Click the Mail Server menu item if it is not already open.

  3. Click the MTA Settings menu item.

  4. Locate the MTA Server Options section.

  5. Type in the fully qualified server name in the Mail Server Hostname field.

  6. Click the Update button.

  7. You will see the following set of messages at the top of the screen: MTA server config settings updated successfully. Service successfully restarted.

Some mail servers will reject mail from a mail server that has a hostname unresolvable by DNS, therefore it’s best if the mail server host name is able to be resolved via DNS.

Procedure - Change the Default Domain

The default domain appending to any address that doesn’t include a domain portion (i.e. a missing @domain.com will be translated to use the default domain).

  1. Click the System Services menu item if it is not already open.

  2. Click the Mail Server menu item if it is not already open.

  3. Click the MTA Settings menu item.

  4. Locate the MTA Server Options section.

  5. Type in the new default domain for the mail server in the Default Domain field.

  6. Click the Update button.

  7. You will see the following set of messages at the top of the screen: MTA server config settings updated successfully. Service successfully restarted.

Change the Mail Server’s Bounce Message Options

  1. Click the System Services menu item if it is not already open.

  2. Click the Mail Server menu item if it is not already open.

  3. Click the MTA Settings menu item.

  4. Locate the MTA Bounce Message Options section.

  5. Modify the values as desired.

  6. Click the Update button in the MTA Bounce Message Options section.

  7. You will see the following set of messages at the top of the screen: MTA server config settings updated successfully. Service successfully restarted.

MAIL SERVER BOUNCE OPTIONS

Bounce From

Bounce username. Corresponds to the /var/qmail/control/bouncefrom control file.

Bounce Host

If a message is permanently undeliverable, a single bounce notice is sent to the message’s envelope sender. This notice is From: bouncefrom@bouncehost. Corresponds to the /var/qmail/control/bouncehost control file.

Double Bounce Messages

A double-bounce occurs when a bounce notice bounces. This usually only happens when spammers falsify the envelope sender of a message. For this reason it is usually best to disable double-bounce notices.

Double Bounce To

User to receive double-bounce messages.

Double Bounce Host

If a single-bounce notice is permanently undeliverable, a double-bounce notice is sent to doublebounceto@doublebouncehost. (If that bounces, no more bounce attempts are made).

Create A Secondary Inbound SMTP Port

Since many ISP’s today are blocking access to port 25 (the default SMTP port) on any mail server but their own as an anti-spam measure, clients of those ISP’s are required to send email through the ISP’s mail servers exclusively. However, when the sending server’s domain and the domain of the sender’s email address do not match, these emails tend to get caught in other anti-spam measures and are rejected.

This procedure allows server administrators to allow clients access to SMTP on a port other than 25. This new port is created IN ADDITION TO, port 25, end users with ISP’s which do not block port 25 can continue to use the default port for SMTP access.

  1. Click the System Services menu item if it is not already open.

  2. Click the Mail Server menu item if it is not already open.

  3. Click the MTA Settings menu item.

  4. Locate the Alternate Inbound SMTP Server section.

  5. Type the desired port (default 587).

  6. Click the Start button.

The default port is 587, but you can change it to any unused port you wish.

Enable New Port in Firewall (If applicable)

  1. Click the Server menu item if it is not already open.

  2. Click the Firewall menu item.

  3. Locate the Port Access section.

  4. Type 587 (or the port you just created) in the port field.

  5. Select Open from all 4 drop down menus.

  6. Click the Add button.

The new port will show up on the list mentioned as SUBMISSION if you used port 587 as this is the User Submissions SMTP port rather than the server submissions port as port 25 is. If you absolutely need to edit the name you can edit the /etc/services file.

Disabling port 25 will cause your server to be unable to send or receive mail. You will want to leave it activated if you want your server to have email functionality.

Change Inbound Mail Server Options

  1. Click the System Services menu item if it is not already open.

  2. Click the Mail Server menu item if it is not already open.

  3. Click the MTA Settings menu item.

  4. Locate the MTA SMTP Options (inbound) section.

  5. Modify the value(s) you wish to update.

  6. Click the Update button in the MTA SMTP Options (inbound) section.

  7. You will see the following set of messages at the top of the screen: MTA server config settings updated successfully. Service successfully restarted.

MTA SMTP OPTIONS (INBOUND)

SMTP Greeting Message

This is the message the server responds with when connected to for mail delivery. The first word of this message should be the name of the current host. Corresponds to the /var/qmail/control/smtpgreeting control file.

Inbound Connections (max)

The maximum number of concurrent incoming SMTP connections for the mail server. Corresponds to the /var/qmail/control/concurrencyincoming control file.

Timeout

The maximum amount of time in seconds the SMTP mail server will wait for each new buffer of data from the remote SMTP client. Corresponds to the /var/qmail/control/timeoutsmtpd control file.

Message Size

The maximum inbound message size in bytes that is allowed on the server. Setting this to 0 will allow an unlimited message size. Corresponds to the /var/qmail/control/databytes control file.

Add/Remove a Blacklisted E-mail Address

  1. Click the System Services menu item if it is not already open.

  2. Click the Mail Server menu item if it is not already open.

  3. Click the MTA Settings menu item.

  4. Locate the MTA SMTP Options (inbound) section.

  5. In the MTA Level E-mail Address Blacklist field, enter one email address per line. You can also add entire domains simply by entering @domain-you-want-toblacklist on one line.

  6. You can also remove existing blacklist entries simply by deleting unwanted lines from this text box.

  7. Click the Update button in the MTA Level E-mail Address Blacklist section.

  8. You will see the following set of messages at the top of the screen: MTA server config settings updated successfully. Service successfully restarted.

Change the Outbound Mail Server Options

  1. Click the System Services menu item if it is not already open.

  2. Click the Mail Server menu item if it is not already open.

  3. Click the MTA Settings menu item.

  4. Locate the MTA SMTP Options (outbound) section.

  5. Modify the value(s) you wish to update.

  6. Click the Update button in the MTA SMTP Options (outbound) section.

  7. You will see the following set of messages at the top of the screen: MTA server config settings updated successfully. Service successfully restarted.

MTA SMTP OPTIONS (OUTBOUND)

Outbound Connections (max)

The maximum number of concurrent outbound SMTP connections allowed. Corresponds to the /var/qmail/control/concurrencyremote control file.

Response Timeout

The maximum amount of time in seconds that the mail server will wait for a response from the sending mail server. Corresponds to the /var/qmail/control/timeoutremote control file.

Connect Timeout

The maximum amount of time in seconds that the server SMTP client will wait for the remote SMTP server to accept a connection. The kernel normally imposes a 75-second upper limit. Corresponds to the /var/qmail/control/timeoutconnect control file.

Queue Lifetime

The maximum amount of time in seconds that a message will remain in the mail queue for delivery. The default is 604800 (one week). Corresponds to the /var/qmail/control/queuelifetime control file.

Add/Delete a Secondary SMTP Outbound Route

  1. Click the System Services menu item if it is not already open.

  2. Click the Mail Server menu item if it is not already open.

  3. Click the MTA Settings menu item.

  4. Locate the MTA SMTP Options (outbound) section.

  5. In the SMTP Routes field, enter the domain(s) you wish to relay for.

  6. In the SMTP Routes field, you can also delete the domain(s) you wish remove the SMTP route for.

  7. Click the Update button in the MTA SMTP Options (outbound) section.

  8. You will see the following set of messages at the top of the screen: MTA server config settings updated successfully. Service successfully restarted.

For more details and examples of SMTP routes, take a look at our detailed documentation.