This document is (very!) depreciated see Email Server for technical details of a system built in 2008.

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Accessing your email 3 Staff email features/restrictions 4 Calendar / Tasks 5 Antivirus Protection 6 Attachment Blocking

Introduction

We are using Novell Netmail to facilitate our email services for the college. The server provides access to your mailbox, sending and receiving of email across the internet, mailing lists, auto responders, web based access to your email, etc.

The email system now also uses Gee Whiz and Symantec Antivirus Corp Edition, to provide Antivirus, Spam/Content Filtering and Attachment Filtering.

To email all members of staff you can use x@example.com

Accessing your email

You have the choice of email clients to access your messages. You can use Eudora and/or Webclient. Both clients share the same view of your email as the messages remain stored on our email server (mail.varndean.ac.uk). This allows you to use Eudora when sitting at your desk and to use Netmail Webclient when away from your desk via any computer with an internet browser (and of course a connection to the internet).

Please note: Eudora can only access your email from a staff workstation

Staff email features/restrictions

General Mailbox size is limited to 15Mb of storage (This is the space available to you to store you emails on the mail server. This is a lot of space if you don't keep lots of emails with attachments, but can be increased for users that can prove a need. You can check how much space is available by login into Webclient.)

Maximum size of message (including attachments) is 5Mb (this applies to incoming and outgoing messages.)

There is no limit on the number Recipients that a single email can be sent to. (so you can send an email to just one person or to fifty people)

Via Webclient (you can set the options with Webclient and carry on using Eudora) Auto Response to received email (you can set this in the options of the Webclient. Once set email you receive will have an automatic message sent to the sender. You could set it up with a message that you are on holiday or just to let the sender know the email has made it to our system)

Email Forwarding (you can setup your own email forwarding rules from the options section of Webclient. You could set this up to forward all your email to another user/email account or you could set up rules to forward only certain emails)

Student email features/restrictions Students will only be able to use Webclient to access their email.

General Mailbox size is limited to 5Mb of storage (This is the space available to you to store you emails on the mail server.)

Maximum size of message (including attachments) is 3Mb (this applies to outgoing messages.)

The maximum limit on the number Recipients that a single email can be sent to is 10 addresses. (The email will deliver to the first 10 addresses only)

Via Webclient Auto Response to received email (you can set this in the options of the Webclient. Once set email you receive will have an automatic message sent to the sender. You could set it up with a message that you are on holiday or just to let the sender know the email has made it to our system)

Email Forwarding (you can setup your own email forwarding rules from the options section of Webclient. You could set this up to forward all your email to another user/email account or you could set up rules to forward only certain emails)

Calendar / Tasks

Webclient provides you with a full calendar, task and notes system. You can specify one off events, recurring events and send these to other users so they can import them into their calendar.

Spam / UBE (unsolicited bulk email) blocking Realtime Blackhole List Currently we are using services provided by online databases of known Email systems that send Spam / UBE (this is known as a Real time Black hole List or RBL).

When our email server receives messages from a remote server/system, it checks that the server is not listed on one of these RBL databases. If the server is listed as a known Spam / UBE source/relay then our system rejects the messages. This will not block all spam, but it can reduce it by as much as 15%.

We currently use services provided by www.spamhaus.org and www.ordb.org

Spam Content Filter (SpamAssassin / Bayesian filter) The college has setup a global spam filtering service on our email server . The software install is called Gee Whiz (www.omni-ts.com)

GEE Whiz Anti-Spam uses a SpamAssassin-like approach to dealing with Spam. (SpamAssassin applies a rule base and a wide range of heuristic tests on mail headers and body text to try and identify 'Spam', also known as unsolicited commercial email. SpamAssassin assigns a 'value' to each message, the higher this value is the more likely the message is spam).

Please note the score values here may be changed as we tune the spam filter to our usage.

The system has been setup so that a score of 3.5 or greater is considered likely to be spam. If an email scores 3.5 or more, it has it's subject altered to include ( S-P-A-M ??/?? ) at the end and a detailed breakdown of the score is attached to the end of the email. The system automatically moves emails marked as spam into a new folder called "SPAM" in your email account.

Currently any email scoring over 20 is deleted from the system.

Outside email arrives at our server Email is passed to Gee Whiz and processed against SpamAssassin rule set and Bayesian analysis. Email is given a spam score If score is 3.5 or above then email is marked as spam and placed in user spam folder. If score is 20 or above then the email is deleted from the system. This method allows you to check the spam folder periodically for any emails that you did want, while leaving your inbox generally uncluttered.

Note: Currently we are appending the spam score to the subject heading of email which is below 4.0. This is in place while we fine tune the system.

Antivirus Protection

Our server now checks all incoming and outgoing messages for viruses in any attachments. This check is facilitated via Gee Whiz (www.omni-ts.org) and Symantec (Norton) Antivirus Corp Edition.

Should an attachment be found to contain a virus, it is removed from the email message and replaced with a notice informing you that an attachment had a virus. The message is then delivered minus virus attachment(s). Any attachments that were not infected, will be delivered.

Please note that this protection is not foolproof, new viruses can be sent before the antivirus software has been updated to detect it. You should still only open attachments from trusted sources and if you were expecting the attachment.

Attachment Blocking

The college email system now blocks certain file type's and names from being attached to incoming emails. These files are restricted because they can pose a security risk and could be used in security exploits. Should you need to have these file types sent to you from outside the college, then they will need to compressed into a ZIP file. This can be done using WinZip

Currently the system blocks the following: File types

Executable Files (.exe, .com, .dll, .scr, .vxd, .ocx, .cpl, .qtx)

Windows-Related Files (.hlp, .reg, .cur)

Music Files (.mid, .mp3)

Movie Files (.asf, .mpg)

File names

• .COM$
• .EXE$
• .VBS$
• .SCR$
• .BAT$
• .LNK$
• .PIF$
• .SHS$
• .ADE$
• .ADP$
• .BAS$
• .CHM$
• .CMD$
• .CPL$
• .CRT$
• .HLP$
• .HTA$
• .INF$
• .INS$
• .ISP$
• .JS$
• .JSE$
• .MSC$
• .MSI$
• .MSP$
• .MST$
• .PCD$
• .REG$
• .SCT$
• .SHB$
• .URL$
• .VB$
• .VBE$
• .WSC$
• .WSF$
• .WSH$

Currently the system Allows the following: Compressed Formats (.zip, .tzg, .rar)

Documents (.doc, .xls, .ppt, .mdb, .pdf)