CommuniGate Pro Accounts

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HowTo

An account is the basic service unit: every user served with a CommuniGate Pro server should have an account on that server.

Each account is protected with a password, so only the account owner (and, optionally, system and domain administrators) can have access to account data.

The Postmaster account is automatically created in the main Server domain. The Master (unlimited) access right is granted to that account.


Domains, Accounts, and Mailboxes

Accounts are created inside CommuniGate Pro domains. The main domain is created when the server is installed. The name of the main domain is specified in the General Settings. You can create additional, secondary domains with different domain names.

Each CommuniGate Pro domain has its own settings and a set of accounts. Accounts should have unique names within their domain, but two accounts in different domains can have the same name.

Account E-mail address is accountname@domainname address where accountname is a name of a CommuniGate Pro account, and domainname is the name of the CommuniGate Pro domain in which this account is created. Messages directed to this account address are delivered to the account using the Local Delivery module.

An account may have several names (for example, john.smith and jsmith). An administrator can create account aliases to assign several names to one account.

A CommuniGate Pro domain may also have several names (for example, company.com and mail.company.com). An administrator can create domain aliases to assign several domain names to one domain.

Each account can contain one or several mailboxes. Mailboxes contain mail messages. The INBOX mailbox exists in every account, and it is used to store incoming messages.

The CommuniGate Pro Server provides access to accounts via POP, IMAP and other modules. Users can connect to the Server using various mail applications and can retrieve messages for account mailboxes, move messages between the mailboxes, delete messages, append messages, and mark messages in the account mailboxes.

Besides mailboxes, CommuniGate Pro Accounts can store additional information and data. See the Account Data section for the details.


Account Settings and Default Settings

Each CommuniGate Pro account has individual settings. Settings are specified by the system or domain administrator and most of them cannot be modified by the account owner.

The Account Settings specify the user password and resource limits (maximum mailboxes size, number of files in the Personal Web Site, etc.), authentication methods, and other individual options.

It is convenient not to specify some settings for each account, but let all accounts in a domain, or even all accounts on the CommuniGate Pro server use the same settings that can be modified for all accounts at once. If you specify the default value for some account setting, the system will use the setting value retrieved from the default account settings for the account domain. The domain default account settings can themselves be specified as having the default value, in this case the setting value is retrieved from the global default account settings specified for the entire Server.

Example:

The global (Server) default account settings:Storage Limit = 10Mbytes
The company.com default account settings:Storage Limit = 30Mbytes
The client.com  default account settings:Storage Limit = default

Now:

  • If you create an account in any domain, and set its Storage Limit to some value, that value will be used.
  • If you create an account in the company.com domain, and set its Storage Limit value to default, the account will be able to keep up to 30Mbytes of mail (the Default Account Setting for that domain).
  • If you create an account in the client.com  domain, and set its Storage Limit value to default, the account will be able to keep up to 10Mbytes of mail (the global Default Account Setting for the Server).

When you serve many accounts, you should try to specify most of the setting values as default, so you can easily change those settings for all accounts. If some account should be treated differently, you explicitly specify the required setting value for that account.


Displaying the Account List

To browse the list of CommuniGate Pro accounts or to create a new account, use a Web browser to access the WebAdmin Interface and enter the Accounts section.

If you want to view accounts in a Secondary Domain, enter the Domains section, and follow the link for that domain. You should have the Can Modify User Accounts access right to browse, create, and remove accounts and to modify account settings.

If you are a Domain Administrator, then the list of accounts in your domain appears on the main Domain administration page.

The Accounts page lists all users accounts in the selected domain:

Filter:
  2 of 304 selected Show Detailed Info
Account Type Current Size Last Access
lsmithMultiMailbox140K19-12-1998[206.40.74.198]
fsmithText Mailbox34K20:34:56[206.40.74.195]

To select users by name, type a string into the Filter field, and click the Display button: only the accounts with names containing the specified string will be displayed.

The pop-up menu allows you to limit the number of accounts to be displayed.

Each line in the list contains an account name, the account type, the size of the account, and the last time the account was accessed.

Since the Server needs some time to retrieve the account Current Size and the Last Access info, this information is shown only when the Show Detailed Info option is enabled.


Creating a New Account

To create a new account, type a new account name into the field on the right side of the Create Account button.

external INBOX in /var/mail/* 

Use the pop-up menu to specify the account type:

MultiMailbox
A folder-type account that can contain several mailboxes of various types. A Text-type INBOX mailbox is automatically created within an account. All incoming mail is stored in the INBOX mailbox by default. The user can create additional mailboxes using any IMAP client software, or using the CommuniGate Pro Web E-mail Interface.
 
Text Mailbox, MailDir Mailbox, ...
An account that contains a single INBOX mailbox. You can select any supported mailbox type. If the user plans to use just some POP3 client software, so only one mailbox is needed, you may want to create a Single-Mailbox type account for that user.

By default, the account name becomes the person's E-mail name, so account names should contain only letters, digits, dash and point signs - some mail systems cannot send mail to accounts if account names contain other symbols.

external INBOX
Select this option if you want the new account INBOX to be created as an external mailbox, so new account can be used with legacy local mailers. This option is enabled only if the external mailbox location is specified in the Domain Settings.
 

Click the Create Account button. When a new account is created, its name appears in the Accounts list. The Server automatically displays the Settings page for the new account.

The new account Settings are automatically set to the Account Template values.

You can create several accounts at once, by preparing an Account List file and using the Import option.


Specifying Account Settings

To specify Account Settings, click the account name in the Accounts list. The Account Settings page appears.

Account Type:  MultiMailbox Access Rights 
Account Type
This field indicates the account type (single-mailbox or multi-mailbox)
 
Access Rights
This link is used to open a page and grant Access Rights to the user.
 
Real Name: 
o (organization): 
l (city): 
CommuniGate  
Password: 
Real Name
This field is used to specify the real-life user name. The Server uses this information to compose the default 'From' address in Web Mailer.

additional fields
If the Server Central Directory contains some additional fields, these fields appear in this panel and can be modified.

CommuniGate Password
The account password. When authenticating a user, the Server can check either this password or OS password, or both (see below).

The modified values of the Real Name and additional fields are updated in the Central Directory if the Domain has the Update Directory option enabled.

After the Account Settings are modified, click the Update button.

Authentication Methods

Use the following settings to specify the account authentication methods.
CommuniGate Password
Allow to Use:
Allow to Modify:
Encryption:
Server OS Password
Allow to Use:
External Authentication
Allow to Use:
Secure Login
Required:

Allow to Use CommuniGate Password
This setting tells the Server if it should use the CommuniGate Password string when authenticating a user. The user should use the CommuniGate Password or the Server OS password (see below) to connect to the CommuniGate Pro Server.

Allow to Modify
This option allows the user to modify the password via either the PWD module or via the WebUser Interface for Account Settings.

Encryption
This option specifies how the Server should store the CommuniGate Password. If the clear option is selected, the password is stored as a clear-text string. All other options specify various encryption methods. In most cases, you will not specify this setting on a per-account basis, but rather using the Domain Account Defaults or global Account Defaults.
The U-crpt password encryption is available on Unix platforms only. It is used for compatibity with the Unix "crypt" encryption method and it should be used for migrating users from other mail servers only. The U-crtp-encrypted passwords can not be used for Secure (SASL) Authentiation methods.
See the Security section for the details.

Allow to Use Server OS Password
This setting allows the user to work with the account using the password set in the Server OS registration information for this user. If both OS and CommuniGate Pro passwords are enabled, and if at least one of these passwords matches the password provided by a user, the user is allowed to connect to the account. The server composes checks the password for the OS user name composed using the OS User Name Domain Setting.
See the Security section for the details.

Allow to Use External Authentication
This setting allows the user to work with the account using the password verified with the External Authenticator program.
See the Security section for the details.

Secure Method Required
This option requires use of secure authentication methods (APOP or non-clear-text SASL methods) with this account. If a user mailer application connects to the Server and supplies a password for this account using an unsecure ("clear text") authentication method, the server will reject the connection even if the supplied password is correct. Clear-Text password are still accepted if they are passed through a secure (SSL/TLS) communication channel.
Note: Since OS passwords can be checked only using the clear-text authentication method, the Allow to Use CommuniGate Password option should be enabled and a CommuniGate password should be specified if the user is forced to use a secure authentication method.

If both Allow to Use CommuniGate Password and Allow to Use Server OS Password options are disabled, the user will not be able to access the account.

Any of Authentication Setting can be set to the default value, in this case the setting value is taken from the domain Default Account Settings or the global Default Account Settings.

Enabled Services

There is a set of settings that specify which CommuniGate Pro services can be used with the account:

Enabled Services
default Mail POP IMAP PWD ACAP WebMail WebSite Relay Mobile

The Server checks the account and the account domain settings. Only if the service is enabled for both the account and the account domain, that service can be used with this account.

See the Domains Settings section for more details.

If you select the default option, the Enabled Services for this account are defined using domain Default Account Settings or the global Default Account Settings.

Please note a difference between the Default Account settings and the Enabled Services specified for the domain: while you can override the default account settings for some account by explicitly specifying the enabled services for that account, you cannot override the Enabled Services specified for the Domain. If the Default Account Settings disable POP and IMAP access, you can explicitly enable POP and IMAP access for a particular account. But if POP and IMAP access is disabled in the Domain Settings, no account in that domain can be accessed via these protocols.

Resource Usage Limits

 LimitsCurrent 
Mail Storage: 134K 
Web Storage: 89K 
Web Files:
Mail Storage
This option is used to specify the maximum total size of the all Account mailboxes. If a new incoming message cannot be stored in an account, because the account size would exceed the specified limit, the message is rejected and the message sender receives an error report.

Web Storage
This option is used to specify the maximum total size of the all files in the account personal Web site. If this option is set to zero, the account Web Site is disabled.

Web Files
This option is used to specify the maximum number of all files in the account personal Web site.

Any of the Limits Settings can be set to the default value, in this case the setting value is taken from the domain Default Account Settings or the global Default Account Settings.

Processing Options

ProcessingAllow to Modify
RPOP Accounts
Automated Rules

RPOP Accounts
This setting tells the Server if the user is allowed to specify remote host (RPOP) accounts that the RPOP module should poll on the user's behalf.
If this option is disabled, only the administrator can specify the RPOP accounts for this user.
Click the RPOP Accounts link to specify the remote accounts to be polled on behalf of this user.

Automated Rules
This setting tells the Server if the user is allowed to specify automated Rules that instruct the Server how to process incoming messages.

No
If this option is selected, only the administrator can specify the automated rules for this user.

Filter Only
If this option is selected, the user can specify only the following actions: Discard, Reject, Stop Processing, Mark, Add Header, and Store in.

All But Exec
If this option is selected, the user can specify any action, but the Execute action.

Any
If this option is selected, the user can specify any action.

Click the Automated Rules link to specify the rules to be applied to all incoming messages directed to this account.

If an administrator creates an Automated Rule containing actions the account user is not allowed to specify, the user will be able to view that Rule, but will not be able to modify any part of it.

Any of these Settings can be set to the default value, in this case the setting value is taken from the domain Default Account Settings or the global Default Account Settings.

Miscellaneous Options

Miscellaneous
Accept Mail to all New Mailboxes: 
Add Mail Trailer:  Add Web Banner: 

Accept Mail to all
This setting tells the Server to store messages directed to the all@domain address in the account INBOX.

New Mailboxes
This setting is displayed for multi-mailbox accounts only. It specifies the default storage type for all new mailboxes created in this account.

Add Mail Trailer
This setting tells the Server to append the trailer text (specified in the Domain Settings) to all messages this user composes using the WebUser Interface.

Add Web Banner
This setting tells the Server to insert the Web banner code (specified in the Domain Settings) to all HTML files retrieved from the account Personal Web Site.

Any of these Settings can be set to the default value, in this case the setting value is taken from the domain Default Account Settings or the global Default Account Settings.


Specifying Account Aliases

Each account can have aliases (alternative names). If the account JohnSmith has the jsmith and j.smith aliases, mail directed to jsmith and to j.smith will be stored in the JohnSmith account. Also, to access the JohnSmith account via POP, IMAP, and other mailer application the user names jsmith and j.smith can be specified in the mailer settings.

Aliases

You can modify existing aliases, add an alias by typing a new name in the empty field, and remove an alias by deleting it from its field. Use the Update button to update the list of account aliases.

Alias names should not be the same as the name of some other account, alias, or a mailing list in the same domain.


Creating Mailing Lists

Every CommuniGate Pro Mailing List has an owner - an account in the main or one of the secondary domains. To create a Mailing List, you should create the Owner account first. For each list, the Mailing List manager creates several mailboxes inside the owner account, so the owner account should be of the MultiMailbox type.

Mailing Lists
List NameSubscribers
RD-List1025

To create a mailing list, type the list name and click the Create List button. To modify the list settings, to rename and remove the mailing lists use the links to the Mailing List Settings pages.


Renaming Accounts

If you want to rename an account, open its Settings page with a Web browser, and enter a new account name into the New Account Name field. Click the Rename Account button.

If there is no other account with the same name as the specified new account name, the account is renamed and its Account Settings page should reappear on the screen under the new name.

You cannot rename an account when it is in use.

New Account Name:


Removing Accounts

If you want to remove an account, open its Settings page with a Web browser, and click the Remove Account button. The confirmation page should appear.

If you confirm the action, the selected account, all its mailboxes, settings, and other account-related data files will be permanently removed from the Server disks.

The account aliases and all mailing list owned by this account will be removed, too.

You cannot remove an account when it is in use.


Specifying Default Account Settings

An account setting can have the default value. In this case the actual setting value is taken from the Default Account Settings for this domain. You can modify these default values by clicking the Account Defaults link on the Account List or Domain Settings page.

The Default Account Settings page resembles a regular Account Settings page. Any setting on that page can also be set to the default value, in this case the actual value is taken from the global Default Account Settings, which specify the default setting values for all accounts in all Server domains.

You can modify the global Default Account Settings by clicking the Account Defaults link on the Domains (Domain List) page.


Specifying Account Template

When you have to create many accounts, you may want to specify some non-default setting for all new accounts. Each domain has its own Account Template, and you can modify it by clicking the Template link on the Account List page.

The Accounts Template page resembles a regular Account Settings page.

All the settings set there will be copied to all newly created accounts in this domain. Note: The Default Account Settings and Account Template are quite different. The Account Template is used only when an account is created. All template settings with non-default values are copied to the new account settings. If you modify the template settings after an account has been created, the account settings will not change.

Besides the initial, non-Default setting values, the Account Template can be used to instruct the server to create several mailbox in each new account (by default only the INBOX mailbox is created), and to subscribe the account to certain mailboxes.

Additional Mailboxes

Enter a name into the empty field to add a mailbox name to the list. In this sample, when a new multi-mailbox account is created in this domain, the mailboxes Sent and Drafts will be created in that account, along with the INBOX mailbox.

Initial Subscription

Creating initial non-empty subscription:


Importing User Account Information

The built-in Account Loader allows the administrator to register sets of users. The user names and account attributes should be placed into a tab-delimited text file on the administrator (client) computer, and that file should be uploaded to the server using the Import field.

Click the browse button to select a file on your local system, and then click the Import Accounts button to create accounts listed in the selected file.

external INBOX in /var/mail/* 

There is a sample IMPORT file:
NameTypeIgnoreStorageAliases
johndMultiMailboxsales dept50M 
susanMultiMailboxmgmnt10Msusan.s,susan_smith
salesMultiMailboxdummy30M 
infoMultiMailboxdummy50Mhelp

Note: The 4.5 and later Macintosh versions of the Microsoft Internet Explorer upload Macintosh files in the encoded x-macbinary format if the file contains a resource fork. Most text files created with Macintosh text editor applications contain resource forks that keep the information about the file fonts, file window position, and other Macintosh data. Such files cannot be used as import files with the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser. Either use a text editor application that saves text files without resource forks or use a browser that uploads Macintosh files without encoding.

The first file line describes the file contents. It should contain tab-delimited names of account attributes. The following names are supported:

Name
This column contains the account names. This attribute is not required to be in the first column, but it must exist. All other attributes are optional.
RealName
This column contains the account user "real name".
Type
This column contains the account type (MultiMailbox, Text Mailbox, etc.). If the file does not contain this column, or this field is empty, the account type selected in the pop-up menu right to the Create Account button is used.
Password
This column contains the account password. If the file does not contain this column, or this field is empty, the CommuniGate Password and the Use CommuniGate Password settings are taken from the domain Account Template.
UnixPassword
This column can be used instead of the Password column. It it exists, it should contain crypt-encrypted account passwords. The Account Loader will add the binary prefix to those strings, so these CommuniGate passwords will be used as U-crpt encrypted passwords. See the Migration section for more details.
Storage
This column contains the maximum account size (in bytes, or in kilobytes, if the number is followed with K, or in megabytes, if the number is followed with M). The column data can contain -1 or unlimited to specify unlimited storage.
Aliases
This column contains the account aliases; several aliases may be specified in one field if they are separated with the comma signs.
Ignore
This column is ignored. An account list file can contain several Ignore columns.
setting name
You can use columns that contain initial values for various additional account settings (WebSite file and size limit, type or Rule actions enabled, etc.). The column should have the same name as that account setting name (keyword). For example, you can use the column named MaxWebSize to specify the storage limit for the account Web Site, and you can also use the column named MaxAccountSize instead of the Storage column.
directory field
You can use columns that contain initial values for various fields in the Central Directory. The column name should be the same as the Directory field name. For example, if your Central Directory has the field l (city), you can include a column named l in your account import file.

If the first line is parsed, all other lines are processed. Each line should contain tab-delimited fields, with the field contents specified in the first line. A line can contain less fields than the first line, in this case missing fields are processed as empty fields.

Attribute values for empty and missing fields are taken from the Account Template.

If an error occurs while processing some file line (missing name field, duplicate name, etc.), all accounts created while processing previous lines are removed, and the number of the line that caused the problem is displayed. You can fix the file and try again.

If you want to move your users from a CommuniGate for MacOS server, you can build the account list file using the CommuniGate/MacOS extractor utility.

If you want to move your users from a Stalker Internet Mail Server (SIMS), you can build the account list file using the SIMS extractor utility.


CommuniGate® Pro Guide. Copyright © 1998-1999, Stalker Software, Inc.