Secure Messaging: EMAIL

Secure Messaging: EMAIL

JTAN Email

Email is a key component of a ProShell or ProWeb account.

Your primary JTAN email addresses is based on your username

username@jtan.com

If you have an account with a registered domain, you can also receive mail sent to

username@yourdomain.com

The following is the JTAN information you need to configure a new account

  Incoming Server: imap.jtan.com  Port: 143
  Outgoing Server: smtp.jtan.com  Port: 587

For detailed instructions, Google "how to add new account" along with your mailer's name. For example, you can Google How to add new account in Outlook for Microsoft Outlook instructions.

Speaking of Google, Gmail is a fine web based mailer that can also be configured to read JTAN mail with the above information.

If you don't like Google that much, you can access your mail through the Web via our secure mail reader that you can use. If you access your account through the Internet via SSH, you will probably use one of the unix shell mailers, elm, pine, or mutt. Mutt and elm support message encryption with PGP

You can also access mail over the internet with network based mailers that run on your PC. The JTAN incoming mail server is pop.jtan.com. It runs POP and IMAP, as well as the much preferred Secure Mail protocols POPS and IMAPS.

JTAN is tough on Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE, or SPAM). We have many advanced anti-spam features. Read our Spam FAQ for more information about how we help you fight against spam.

Many customers will send their outgoing mail through their local ISP's SMTP server. For a stationary PC, this can be the most efficent approach. However, user's with Laptops, and users who have ISP's with strict anti-relay policies may have trouble sending mail using their ISP's SMTP server. If you have trouble sending mail through local means, you can use the JTAN SMTP servers instead. Set your outgoing mail server to "smtp.jtan.com".

Access to mail servers is restricted to JTAN customers. The POP server is restricted through an assigned username and password; SMTP for outgoing mail can be accessed 20 minutes after POP is accessed with the proper password. Therefore, if you want use the JTAN SMTP server, it is important to check your mail first before attempting to send mail. If you don't check your mail first, you may get a "Relaying Denied" error. Even if you have no messages incoming, the act of checking your mail will open the door for your outgoing mail.

In either case, JTAN server or local ISP, you need to specify the SMTP server. Our POP server does not do SMTP --- we have a separate machine for that.

JTAN also operates a SMTP/AUTH server. The machine, "smtp.jtan.com" can use the SMTP/AUTH protocol to authenticate users that want to send mail. The preferred technique is called CRAM-MD5, but the server will also accept LOGIN and PLAIN methods. We have tested the server with Eudora and Outlook and it works flawlessly. This table lists mailer compatibility with SMTP/AUTH methods.

For more information about setting up secure mail services, refer to our secure mail FAQ here

Addresses versus Mailboxes

It's important to understand the difference between an address and a mailbox. Just like with paper "snail mail", these are different things.

A mailbox is an endpoint for mail delivery -- a place where mail waits to be read. A mailbox has a user ID and a password associated with it. In contrast, an address is an indication of where to send mail. It's a pointer to either a mailbox, or some other address. We know that people like to think of their "email address" as the same as their "mailbox", but we prefer that you think in terms of your email address pointing to your mailbox.

At JTAN, a mailbox always has a one local domain address that points to it it. This "local" address is constructed by combining the Mailbox ID with the local domain selected for the mailbox. Most boxes at JTAN are either in the jtan.com or linex.com local domains. For example, mailbox ID "pop1234" in the "jtan.com" local domain has a local address "pop1234@jtan.com".

JTAN customers are typically issued one mailbox when they sign up. This mailbox has an ID that is the same as the customer's JTAN username. For example, JTAN user "abc" will have a mailbox abc assigned, with local address abc@jtan.com

Extra Email Addresses

If you have a registerd domain with either a proWeb or ProShell/DNS account, you can have any number of email addresses in your domain. From the Members Only "Manage: Addresses" page, you can configure any number of email addresses in your domain that will point to other addresses, or to a real mailbox


  alice@yourdomain.com -> somebox@jtan.com
  bobby@yourdomain.com -> someuser@someplace.com

These are very useful. You can even have anything@yourdomain.com forwarded to a mailbox. The usual default, in fact, is to have anything@yourdomain.com forwarded to your jtan mailbox. But you may want it sent somewhere else. Maybe you have a hotmail address that you use, or maybe you like the mailbox at your local ISP. Any of these sorts of things can be set up with alias forwarders. Of course, you could use them to forward to several local POP Mailboxes at JTAN.

Multiple POP Mailboxes

Every JTAN account comes with one mailbox that, by default, receives all the mail for that account and any associated domain. Many JTAN users find it most convenient to use this single mailbox for all their mail, possibly divided up into IMAP folders. We allow Secure Mail connections to this main account. We also allow not-as-secure direct POP and IMAP connections.

You see, ordinary POP/IMAP will send your Mailbox Password across the net in the clear (unencrypted). Bad guys snatch these passwords like so many low hanging apples. Seriously, use IMAPS, or POPS if you at all can. Switch to a program that supports secure mail. Most of the newer programs do.

As we mentioned above, you can have multiple email addresses going different places without needed multiple POP boxes. If you need multiple virtual email addresses, or "aliases" that are forwarded on to real mailboxes, you can do this with address aliases. Often "role addresses" like info@yourdomain.com and webmaster@yourdomain.com are aliases. Virtual email aliases can be set up in the JTAN members area on the Manage Addresses page if you have a ProShell/DNS or ProWeb account (or LineX equivalent).

Sometimes, however, it's actually necessary to have completely separate POP mailboxes associated with the account or domain. Usually this is necessary when mail must be read by a specific person that dosen't already have an appropriate email boxes to which the mail could be forwarded. Another good reason is if you want to forward the same address to multiple targets, since aliases can only forward to one target, but a real mailbox can forward to several. In case where you really do need an extra POP mailbox, extra POP Mailboxes can be set up from the Members Area, but be sure to consider virtual domain aliases, and filtering and forwarding as an alternative to POP mailboxes.

Fighting Spam and Viruses

The JTAN mail system has numerous additional facilities for combatting spam and viruses. These are described in the JTAN Anti-Spam FAQ.

Outgoing Address Masquerading

By popular request, if you have a domain (ProWeb and ProShell/DNS) we now auto-magically rewrite mail addressed as "From: yourname@jtan.com", coming from an account at jtan, with the replacement virtual domain address "From: yourname@yourdomain.com". This feature can be controlled from the Members Area. This rewriting only affect mail sent from the shell, including mail sent from web pages, scripts, and CGI form mailers.

Sending your mail to the shell

By default, accounts are set up with mail routed to the POP server. This allows you to retrieve mail with POP, IMAP (yechh!), or Secure Mail (tahh dahh!), or with our secure web based mail system. Some users want their mail forwarded to their shell account so they can read it with a shell mailer like elm or mutt, or they can use advanced filters like procmail.

Sending your mail to your shell machine can be accomplished by selecting that option in the Members Area. You'll find the shell forwarding option hidden in the configuration of your POP mailbox. Be sure you understand that once mail is forwarded to the shell machine, it is no longer available in the web based email system, or with IMAP or POP. Only Secure Mail and shell based mailers can be used to read it.

Reading Your Mail from the Shell with POP or Secure Mail

If you leave your mail on the POP server, that doesn't mean you can't read it in the shell. Pine and Mutt have built in POP support. Better yet, you can use the excellent program fetchmail to fetch your mail from the POP server using Secure Mail protocols.

In order to get mail from the POP server using pine, you have to add


  FOLDERNAME {pop.jtan.com/pop3}inbox

to the incoming-folders= section of your .pinerc where FOLDERNAME is the name of the folder you want to be a link to your pop box. There may be a way to do this from within pine, but this way was easier for this lazy FAQ writer to find.

Procmail

Procmail is a very flexible package for filtering mail. It can sort received mail into different folders, forward mail selectively to different people, reject spam, break mailing list digests into individual articles, automatically reply to certain mail, and many other functions.

Before you decide to use Procmail, you should know that JTAN's advanced Mail Rule editor can do many things that Procmail does. You'll find a link to the rule editor from your Mailbox Configuration page.

If you really want the full power of Procmail, you need to do three things to be able to make it work. First, you need to have your mail sent to your shell machine. This can be done from the Members Area. Second, you need to read the documentation enough to understand how to write a .procmailrc file. Finally, you need to create that file and put it in your home directory. For all JTAN shell accounts, Procmail is the local delivery agent. That means all you need is a .procmailrc file in your home directory to get procmail going. You do not need a .forward file to run procmail.

Procmail will often be reluctant to create log files (it's a security thing). If you set up procmail to use a log file, and procmail doesn't seem to want to work, try creating an empty log file with the "touch" command. That should shake it loose.