In general, your email client needs to be configured to send its mail via your Webvisions Virtual Mail Server. This section shows how to configure popular email software packages (e.g Microsoft Outlook Express and Eudora) for the PC. Please note that these email clients are also available for the Macintosh and should be similarly configured.

Download Email Clients from the Web

For a list of popular email clients available for download, please visit our List of Email Programmes on our HTML Resources Page. This page includes links to Eudora (Light and Pro), Pegasus Mail and Microsoft Outlook Express. Many of these programmes are either freeware or shareware.

Understanding SMTP Authentication

SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) is used for the transmission of e-mail on the Internet. Many ISPs and Web Hosting Providers are discontinuing the practice of providing unrestricted outgoing SMTP -- largely due to lack of proper methods of identifying whether a sender is a legitimate user which in turn leads to a high level of vulnerability of spam, abuse and denial of service attacks.

When retrieving your POP email, your email client makes use of your pop password to validate the legitimacy of a pop user id. Using this same pop email id and pop password, your Virtual Mail Server will authenticate any users against them to validate that the user(s) sending the email is a valid user.

Employing this technique helps to reduce the amount of unsolicited email sent via your mail server, prevents it from being blackholed by ORBz and RBL services, reduces traffic overhead, increases smtp performance and reduces spam on the Internet. SMTP Authentication requires an email client that supports SMTP Authentication protocols. Fortunately, it is now becoming a common and necessary feature and most major e-mail clients like Eudora, Microsoft Outlook and Pegasus support it.

SMTP Authentication is a new service that will be a default option for all customers when as of April 31 2002. It is required when sending mails via an external email client. Customers using our WebMail service will not be affected.

Customers who disable SMTP Authentication run the risk of the mail server being exploited for spam. If the mail server is exploited, Webvisions will automatically enable SMTP Authentication WITHOUT further warning to the customer.

Standard Settings for Configuration Across Any Email Client

The following are the settings that need to be configured on whatever email client you are using to retrieve your email.

• Your POP3 Login (You will need this to enable SMTP Authentication).
  
• The POP3 Email Password (You will need this to enable SMTP Authentication).
  
• The SMTP Server (this should be set at smtp.yourdomain.com)

[ Configuring Netscape Mail ] [ Configuring Eudora Mail ] [ Configuring Microsoft Outlook (& Outlook Express) ] [ Configuring Pegasus Mail ]

Customers using Microsoft Outlook on MACs.
Customers using Microsoft Outlok on Macs should download the latest version as there appears to be some bugs with Outlook on Macs when running SMTP Authentication. Please Download the latest version here.

Configuring Netscape Mail

1. Open Communicator, pull down the Edit menu and select "Preferences..." to display the Preferences window.
   

2. In the Preferences window, select "Mail & Newsgroups" and then click the triangle or + sign to the left of "Mail & Newsgroups" to expand the menu.

3. Select the "Mail Servers" category under the "Mail & Newsgroups" heading.

4. Type the appropriate server name in the "Outgoing mail (SMTP) server:" box.

5. Type your e-mail user name in "Outgoing mail server user name:" box and click "OK".

Configuring Eudora Mail

1. To turn on SMTP authentication on a Windows workstation, open Eudora, pull down the Tools menu and select "Options..." to display the Options window.
   

2. In the Options window, select the "Getting Started" category on the left-hand side.

3. To turn on SMTP authentication on a Macintosh, open Eudora, pull down the Special menu and select "Settings..." to display the Settings window. In the Settings window, select the "Hosts" category on the left-hand side.

4. For both Macintosh and Windows, type the appropriate server name in the "SMTP Server" box.

5. Select the "Allow authentication" checkbox and click "OK".
   

Configuring Microsoft Outlook (& Outlook Express)

1. Start Outlook 2000 or Outlook Express. From the menu, select Tools, then Accounts.
   

2. Click once on the appropriate account from the Mail tab.
   

3. Select Properties.

4. From the account properties dialog box, choose the Servers tab.

5. Put a check in the box for "My server requires authentication". Click on the Settings button.
   

   The following dialog box should pop up.

   

6. Make sure "Use same settings as my incoming mail server" is selected.

7. Press "OK"

8. Back at the "Properties" and click "Apply", then "OK".

9. Click "OK" as needed to close out of all dialog boxes.