E-Mail Setup

Supported Client Configurations

The following client software is supported by IVS. The use of other software may still work, but such use is at your own risk.

Linux Clients

• Evolution
• Thunderbird
• Fetchmail

Mac OS/X Clients

• OSX Mail
• Thunderbird

Windows Clients

• Thunderbird
• Outlook Express

Palm OS Clients

• Snappermail

Webmail Clients

• Webmail

General Configuration Options

Users preferring client software not listed above may be able to configure it with the following settings. Again, software not listed above is not supported by IVS.

• Receiving server type: pop3 (IMAP customers use imap)
• Port: 995 (IMAP customers use 993)
• Server name: mail.identityvector.com
• SSL: Required (via alternate port 995) (IMAP customers still require SSL, but via port 993)
• Authentication type: Password
• Username: Full e-mail address

• Sending server type: smtp
• Port: 25 or 465
• Server name: mail.identityvector.com
• SSL: Required (via either STARTTLS on port 25 or alternate port 465)
• Authentication type: Plain
• Username: Full e-mail address

Miscellaneous E-Mail Service Notes

SPAM control

All E-Mail delivered to an identityVector-hosted account goes through a two-stage SPAM control process.

• Greylisting is a methodology that capitalizes on the "shortcut" nature of most SPAM engines.
  • A server that is passing legitimate e-mail traffic is primarily interested in the confirmed delivery of its messages. For this reason, a legitimate mail server will attempt to deliver all messages as long as feasible - often a few days.
  • On the other hand, a SPAM server is primarily interested in sending the largest number of messages that it can. Therefore, it is in the SPAMmer's best interest to attempt to send thousands (or more) of messages per hour in the hopes that some percentage of them will actually go through. In general, SPAM servers do not re-attempt to deliver a message if they are rebuked during the first delivery attempt.
  • Greylisting implements a delay between the first attempted delivery of an e-mail message and finally receiving it for delivery to your INBOX. At present, this delay is set to 5 minutes. This delay is what we feel is a "happy medium" between massive loads of SPAM and quick mail delivery.
  • After implementing greylisting on our servers, we have seen SPAM levels drop drastically - over 95%. Typically, we now see repulsion of tens of thousands of messages per day.
  • If you would prefer that this feature be disabled for your account or domain, just let us know and we can do so.

• SpamAssassin is a tool that analyzes the content of e-mail that gets through the greylist process and makes a recommendation as to whether the message looks like SPAM or not.
  • identityVector Solutions WILL NOT delete any messages that are delivered to you, no matter how SPAMmy they look. This final determination is something left to you - the human in the loop.
  • SpamAssassin is a well-established, highly-configurable tool that is very effective in determining whether a particular message appears to be SPAM or not.
  • If SpamAssassin thinks that a message is spam, it will change the subject field of the message by prepending the string [SPAM]. So, a message that was oriignally sent with the subject "Make money fast!" becomes "[SPAM] Make money fast!". You can then configure your mail client to either delete those messages or to move them to a different folder for later review.
  • For all messages (even those that are not tagged with the "[SPAM]" subject) SpamAssassin tells you how 'spammy' it thinks the message is, and why it thought so. This is done by the use of E-Mail headers that start with "X-Spam". Use your email client to view the full headers of a message you retreive from our servers and you'll get a better idea of what these look like and how you may be able to use them. Primarily, these are useful in creating custom filters in your mail client or with procmail.
  • For details on configuring SpamAssassin, please see their web page (linked above, also see this additional link) and the large amount of documentation available online. Per-user SpamAssassin configuration can be accomplished via a web interface. Just login to webmail, click on "Options" at the top of your browser, then on "Spam Filtering". All settings are pretty straightforward, and if you want to get more detailed information on the settings, check out the SpamAssassin page.

Virus scanning

All mail sent though identityVector Solutions' mail servers is scanned for virus content by the Clam Antivirus Engine. Any message that is determined to have a known virus is not even accepted for delivery.