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Email 101: What you need to know

At VectorStar, you have two email folders you need to be aware of: your INBOX and your spam folders. You can see both of them from webmail or from any IMAP client. Make sure you check your spam folder and occasionally delete old messages! These messages take up disk space just like the good emails!

If you don't want your spam delivered to a different folder, scroll down to the "mail filtering" section below. It's configurable!
Last Updated 7-20-2006.

Using Mail Clients with VectorStar

Our mail server is mail.vectorstar.net. The following protocols are supported for sending and/or receiving email:
  • smtp (port 25), smtp/TLS (port 25)
  • pop3 (port 110), pop3+SSL (port 995)
  • imap (port 143), imap+SSL (port 993)
  • Web Mail- HTTP (port 80), HTTPS (port 443)
POP3 or IMAP: Which one to use?
If you want to download your messages from our mail server and keep them on your computer, POP3 would be best for you. However, if you want to access your mail from multiple places, IMAP is best, because it keeps all of your mail on the mail server itself.

If using IMAP, set the mail folder path (sometimes called namespace) to ".mail/". You might have to look in the Advanced Settings.

If your mail client lets you use encryption (SSL) to receive mail, we strongly suggest that you use it. Our server supports SSL both for POP3 and IMAP mail.

SMTP: Sending Mail
In order to send mail through VectorStar to an internet email address, you must login to the SMTP mail server using SMTP Authentication. Nearly every mail client available supports SMTP Authentication (AUTH). Normally, you will see a checkbox when configuring your SMTP server that says "My server requires Authentication". You may need to fill in a username and password box with your VectorStar username and password before your mail client will be able to send mail.

If your mail client lets you choose which authentication types to use for SMTP AUTH, use PLAIN or LOGIN. Do not use CRAM-MD5, as it does not work properly on our servers.

Like POP3 and IMAP, if your mail client supports encryption (sometimes called TLS) when sending mail by SMTP, we strongly suggest that you use it.
Last Updated 7-20-2006.

Web Based Email

VectorStar's Web Email interface is a package called AeroMail. It is a GPL'd PHP interface to an IMAP server. It will allow you to check your mail and send mail without the use of a traditional desktop mail client. It is accessible both over encrypted HTTPS and over standard HTTP.

ScreenShots: AeroMail has full IMAP Folder support, and even saves sent items to the "sent" folder automatically. You can see your "spam" folder too!

It's a very intuitive interface. Best of all, it is fully compatible with all other mail services available with VectorStar.
Last Updated 7-20-2006.

Mail Filtering & Anti-Spam

All of our filtering tools can be configured by logging into this web site and clicking on the "mail filtering" link on the left!

VectorStar uses SpamAssassin to automatically classify all emails. You can also tell the system to filter your messages using a personal bayesian filter. Don't worry, it's easy. You turn it on, it does the rest.

When a spam email is detected, the subject of the message is changed to "(SPAM Score: ##.#) [subject]" where ##.# is the SpamAssassin spam score. The higher the number, the more "spammy" it is. Any message with a score of 8.0 or greater is automatically marked as spam.

You can configure what the system does with your spam emails. There are three options:
  • deliver the email to a specified folder ("spam" by default)
  • delete the message
  • bounce the message back to the sender (not recommended)
Even if you delete the message, your bayesian filter will "learn" it. This ensures that your bayesian filter (if you choose to use it) is always up-to-date.

Why is it a bad idea to bounce the message back to the sender? Well, that could give spammers a clue that (1) your mailbox exists, and (2) with a crafty message they'll be able to spam you! Armed with that information, they'll keep your email address in their "good" database and probably sell it off to more spammers.

If you want your spam to be delivered to your INBOX, simply tell the system to deliver it to the INBOX.

Above and beyond SpamAssassin (both system-wide and per-user), we still support our basic "mailfilter" keyword/pattern filter. It has been improved a bit. It can no longer be turned off, except by deleting all keywords you've configured.

By default, any message caught as spam by the keyword filter will be given a spam score of 11. Why 11? Watch the movie "This is Spinal Tap". You'll understand.
Last updated 7-20-2006.