MDaemon Features

• Backscatter Protection - Pro Only
• Backscatter occurs when spam or viruses send mail using a forged address as the return path. This can lead to thousands of bogus delivery status notifications, vacation and out-of-office messages, autoresponders, etc., ending up in your inbox. MDaemon now nearly eliminates any chance of receiving a non-delivery reply from a message you did not send.
  
  
• Message Certification - Pro Only
• The first email server to use the "Vouch By Reference" method which enables certification providers to vouch for the messages sent by others, thus minimizing the bandwidth required by spam filters.
  
  
• Account Grouping - Pro Only
• Allows an account to be identified as a member of one or more groups.
  
  
• Subaddressing - Pro Only
• Subaddressing is a system for including a folder name in an email address. Replies or emails sent to that email address will pull the folder from the address and move the message into folders automatically without the need to setup filtering rules.
  
  
• Minger Protocol - Pro Only
• Alt-N Technologies has created a new email address verification protocol called Minger. Minger allows others to query your server for user information. It is primarily intended to provide a simple and efficient mechanism for verifying whether an account exists or not.
  
  
• AntiSpam - Pro Only
• With MDaemon’s Spam Blocker and Spam Filter you can stop spam at the door before it ever gets to your users.
  Spam Blocker
  This security feature allows you to specify several ORDB and MAPS RBL type hosts who maintain lists of servers known to relay spam. These hosts are queried each time someone tries to send a message to your server. If the connecting IP address is blacklisted by any of them, the message is refused or flagged as spam by MDaemon. When used in conjunction with MDaemon’s Spam Filter, virtually all spam can be identified and refused or flagged at your discretion before reaching your users.
  Spam Filter
  MDaemon’s Spam Filter examines incoming email messages in order to compute a spam score based on a complex system of rules, which can be automatically updated in order to keep your anti-spam system current. The score is used to determine the likelihood of a message being spam. Certain actions can then be taken based on that score such as refusing to accept the message, flagging it as possible spam, and so on. Addresses can be white or black listed or designated as completely exempt from Spam Filter examination. You can have a spam report inserted into messages—showing their spam scores and how those scores were achieved, or you can generate the report as a separate email and have the original spam message included with it as an attachment. Further, you can even use Bayesian Classification: a complex statistical system that helps the Spam Filter learn over time to identify spam (as well as legitimate email) more accurately and thus increase its reliability. When used in conjunction with MDaemon’s Spam Blocker, virtually all spam can be identified and refused or flagged at your discretion before reaching your users.
  
  
• Collaboration and Contact Sharing - Pro Only
• Share Folders, Calendars, and Contacts, or get MDaemon Outlook Connector and unleash the full power of Outlook’s built-in collaboration features.
  IMAP Folder Sharing
  MDaemon supports the sharing of Public and User IMAP Folders. Public folders are extra folders that do not belong to any particular account but can be made available to multiple IMAP users. User folders are IMAP folders that belong to individual MDaemon accounts. Whether the folders are Public Folders or User folders, each has an access control list that determines what users are allowed to access the messages within it. When IMAP users access their list of personal folders, shared public folders and shared user folders to which they have been given access will also be displayed. In this way certain mail folders can be shared by multiple users but still require each user’s individual logon credentials. Furthermore, having access to a folder doesn’t necessarily mean having full read/write or administrative access to it. Specific access rights can be granted to individual users. For example, you might allow some users to delete messages while restricting that ability for others. Finally, IMAP public folders can optionally store message status flags (i.e. new/unread/deleted) on a per-user basis. In other words, if you are an IMAP user you will not share the same public folder message status flags with all other users—yours will be maintained independently. Thus, when you mark a message as read, no other users will see it marked as such—to them it will still be marked as unread. Without this option, if you view a message in a public folder and mark it as read, all other users viewing that public folder will also see that message marked as read.
  
  Contact Synchronization
  Individual user and global address book information can be synchronized between ComAgent/WorldClient, Outlook, and Windows Address Book (WAB) files. MDaemon can also be configured to keep an LDAP database up to date with contact information via the LDAP and LDaemon options.
  
  Shared Calendaring and Scheduling
  WorldClient is equipped with a complete calendar system for scheduling meetings and appointments, and for creating global and personal memos. You can schedule meetings and designate attendees (causing an email notification to be sent to each person), schedule appointments for yourself, create global and personal memos, and even import and export to Microsoft Outlook and other iCalendar compliant email programs. Additionally, you can set permissions for your calendar and thus control the level of access that others will have to it (i.e. whether they can see or create events on your calendar). Finally, when used with ComAgent, you can receive instant messages each time your calendar is modified and when reminders about approaching calendar events are needed.
  
  MDaemon Outlook Connector
  MDaemon Outlook Connector (also developed by Alt-N Technologies) is a separately licensed product that, along with MDaemon Pro, unlocks the collaborative functions of Microsoft Outlook using MDaemon as the mail server platform. Outlook users can share Calendar, Task, Contact, Notes, and Journal folders without the expense or expertise required by Microsoft Exchange Server.
  
  
• Security - Pro Only
• MDaemon is equipped with an extensive suite of features to help make your email system more secure.
  
  IP Screening, Host Screening, and Address Suppression
  These features provide the capability to screen and prevent certain addresses and domains from connecting to or sending email through your system. They also make it possible to allow connections from specific IP addresses while screening all others.
  
  Tarpitting
  Tarpitting makes it possible for you to deliberately slow down a connection once a specified number of RCPT commands have been received from the sending server. This is to discourage spammers from trying to use your server to send unsolicited bulk email. You can specify the number of RCPT commands allowed before tarpitting begins and the number of seconds to delay the connection each time a subsequent command is received from that host during the connection. The assumption behind this technique is that if takes spammers an inordinately long period of time to send each message then that will discourage them from trying to use your server to do so again in the future.
  
  Automatic IP Screening
  Automatic IP Screening bans a specific IP address from future connections to your MDaemon server once a specified number of “recipient unknown” errors occur from that address during a mail session. You can also ban hosts that attempt to relay messages through your server or deliver messages to unknown local accounts. These IP addresses and hosts will not be banned permanently; they will be banned only for the number of minutes that you have specified.
  
  IP Shielding
  With IP Shielding, you can designate a list of domain names and matching IP addresses that will be checked during the SMTP MAIL FROM: command. An SMTP session claiming to be from someone at one of the listed domains will be honored only if it is coming from a machine with one of the associated IP addresses. Thus anytime a computer connects to your SMTP server and states, for example, “MAIL FROM: ”, the SMTP session will continue only if the connecting computer has an IP address matching one of those that you have associated with mdaemon.com.
  
  SMTP Authentication
  MDaemon contains a number of options related to whether or not a connecting user has authenticated their mail session: authenticated sessions can be exempt from IP Shielding and the POP before SMTP requirement, local users can be required to authenticate before sending email, a global authentication password can be specified, and more.
  
  POP Before SMTP
  Each user can be required to first access his or her mailbox before being allowed to send a message through MDaemon, thus verifying that the user is a valid account holder and allowed to use the mail system.
  
  Relay Control
  With MDaemon, you can define how your server reacts to attempts to relay mail. When a message arrives at your mail server that is not from or to a local address, your server is being asked to deliver the message on behalf of an unrelated third-party. Third-party servers are often used by spammers to hide their tracks, and can result in your server being black-listed as an Open Relay. MDaemon provides a high level of protection against this activity.
  
  Reverse Lookup
  MDaemon can be configured to query DNS servers to check the validity of the domain passed in the HELO/EHLO and/or MAIL commands. When performing these reverse lookups MDaemon will attempt to acquire all of the MX and A record IP addresses for the given domain. Then the IP address of the machine making the connection is compared to this list in an attempt to determine whether the sender might be forging their identity. Suspicious messages may be refused or have a special header inserted into them.
  
  
• AntiVirus Support
• SecurityPlus for MDaemon (sold separately) incorporates the latest anti-virus engine from industry leader KasperskyLabs and combines it with a new Outbreak Protection powered by new technology from CommTouch Software. SecurityPlus for MDaemon helps ensure that your email arrives totally free from viruses, and it is rigorously tested to ensure the utmost in performance, identification, confinement, and elimination of email-borne viruses.
  
  Outbreak Protection addresses the most fundamental characteristic of spam and email-born spyware, phishing scams and viruses - their mass distribution over the Internet.
  By analyzing large volumes of Internet traffic in real time, new outbreaks are identified as soon as they emerge, and patterns are cached in a centralised database.
  **Please note: The SecurityPlus plug-in replaces the AntiVirus plug-in for MDaemon and requires MDaemon 9.5 or above.
  The additional benefits afforded by the RPD™ and Zero-Hour™ Virus Outbreak Protection which includes anti-virus, anti-spam, anti-phishing and anti-spyware protection are only available when running MDaemon Pro. MDaemon Standard users will receive the AntiVirus engine only.
  
  
  
  
• Web-based Email
• WorldClient
  WorldClient is MDaemon’s full-featured, customizable, web-mail client used to access your email, address books, and calendars from around the globe. WorldClient makes it possible for you to access your email using your favorite web browser rather than from a workstation dependent email client. This tool is perfect for mobile staff and users who do not have a dedicated machine from which to access their email. WorldClient is equipped with a complete suite of email client features: send and receive email, spell check messages, manage your email in multiple personal folders, display the interface in any of 18 languages, schedule meetings and appointments with group Calendar & Scheduling features, manage your MDaemon account settings (when used in conjunction with WebAdmin), manage contacts, and more.
  
  Finally, customizable themes allow you to tailor the look and feel of WorldClient to your tastes. Your users will love the LookOut theme, for example, which contains similar controls to familiar mail clients like Outlook and Outlook Express.
  
  
• IMAP Support - Pro Only
• More efficient than the POP3 protocol, IMAP support allows the use of IMAP clients to manage email on the server rather than having to download and manage it on one machine. Plus with IMAP Mail Rules, you can route your messages directly to the folders of your choice.
• Instant Messenger
• ComAgent provides easy access to your email and folders, contacts and calendars, and checks for new messages without having to open your web browser. It is also a complete Instant Messaging system (MDaemon Pro required) that can be used to quickly chat with other MDaemon/WorldClient users, and can maintain a list of “buddies” so that you can quickly see who is available and who is offline.
  
  ComAgent-Java Edition is a Java-based version of ComAgent that provides cross-platform access. Because this version is compatible with virtually any operating system that supports Java (such as Mac OS X), you are not restricted to Windows-based systems to gain access to ComAgent. ComAgent-Java provides full access to MDaemon’s instant messaging system and to your WorldClient email messages and folders—just like the Windows version of ComAgent. Unlike ComAgent, ComAgent-Java does not support the address book synchronization feature since this feature is completely dependent on Microsoft technology.
  
  
• Content Filtering
• With MDaemon’s Content Filter you can customize server behavior based on the headers and content of messages. By processing each message through Content Filter rules, MDaemon will determine what is to be done with the message—when a given rule’s conditions are met this will cause MDaemon to take certain actions. With Content Filters you can: copy emails to one or more other users, append a note or signature to the bottom of messages, add and delete headers, strip email attachments, delete messages, send an instant message, run a program, and much more. Because individual Content Filter rules are created by the administrator, and because of their diversity, they can be used in many situations and are limited for the most part only by the ingenuity of the person creating them. With a little bit of thought and experimentation, this feature can be very useful.
• Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Support - Pro Only
• The standard for securing server/client web communications, Secure Socket Layer (SSL) support provides authentication and encryption for your web mail, and for the SMTP, POP, and IMAP protocols—it provides server authentication, data encryption, and optional client authentication for TCP/IP connections. Further, because SSL is built into all current major browsers, simply installing a valid digital certificate on your server will activate the connecting browser’s SSL capabilities when connecting to WorldClient.
  MDaemon can even provide this security if you are connecting to standard mail ports via a traditional mail client rather than using WorldClient. MDaemon does this by also supporting the STARTTLS extension over Transport Layer Security (TLS) for SMTP and IMAP, and the STLS extension for POP3.
  Finally, with MDaemon, you can also dedicate specific ports for SSL connections. This isn’t required but can provide a further level of accessibility for clients that do not support certain SSL extensions. For example, some email clients don’t support STARTTLS for IMAP over the default mail port but do support connections to dedicated SSL ports
  
  
• Multiple Domain Support - Pro Only
• Provide email services to any number of distinct Internet domains.
• ODBC Support
• Store Mailing List membership and account data in ODBC accessible databases.
  ODBC Support for Account Storage
  MDaemon supports the use of an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) compliant database as its account database backend.
  
  ODBC Support for Mailing Lists
  Your mailing lists’ membership can be maintained in an ODBC compliant database. The Mailing List editor contains options for selecting a data source, table, and field mappings for MDaemon to link to the list. When messages arrive for your list one or more SQL queries will be performed automatically and the resulting email addresses will be treated as part of the list’s membership. You can also add members to your list by inserting them into the database using whatever ODBC compliant database application you choose.
  
  
• Mailing Lists
• MDaemon features a complete suite of mailing list (i.e. email group or distribution list) management functions allowing for an unlimited number of distinct mailing lists that can contain local and/or remote members. MDaemon mailing lists can:
  • Be public (anyone can post) or private (only members can post).
  • Be set to allow or refuse subscription requests for automated list management.
  • Require confirmation of subscribe and unsubscribe requests.
  • Post replies to either the list or the originator of the message.
  • Have their messages sent individually or in a digest format. This option is configured separately for each list member.
  • Have the name of the list and/or thread numbers in the subject header of each list message.
  • Have a moderator
  • Have digests archived into a catalog file for download.
  • Be stored in an IMAP public folder.
  In addition to the above options, you can store membership lists in ODBC accessible databases, have a list’s messages routed to another host for distribution or “cracked” into individual copies and distributed directly, and more.
  
  
• Reliable and Stable
• With MDaemon there is no more worrying about the stability or reliability of your server. Ensuring that MDaemon is both stable and reliable is always one of our highest priorities. You can always depend on MDaemon to get the job done.
• Easy to Backup and Restore
• MDaemon stores its settings and data in files in your MDaemon folders rather than in the Registry. Backing up and restoring your data is as easy as copying your folders.
• Mail Processing Scheduler
• MDaemon is equipped with a versatile Event Scheduler used for controlling the frequency of sending and receiving messages. This makes it possible for you to schedule MDaemon’s Local, Remote, RAW, and System mail processing events as extensively or as simply as you prefer. You can schedule exact times for mail delivery and collection or use a counter to process mail at regular intervals. You can also set conditions that will trigger mail processing at unscheduled times such as when a certain number of messages are waiting to be delivered, or when a message has been waiting a specified amount of time. If you also use MDaemon AntiVirus, the Event Schedule will contain options for scheduling AntiVirus Updates.
• Email for your LAN without a dedicated connection
• With MDaemon, you are not required to have a dedicated full-time connection to the Internet in order to provide remote email services to your LAN. If you do not have a dedicated connection, you can still provide remote email services with as little as a single dial-up ISP account by using one of MDaemon’s built-in features: On-Demand Mail Relay (ODMR) or DomainPOP.
  
  On-Demand Mail Relay (ODMR)
  Perhaps the best method currently available for providing remote email services to your local users when you do not have a dedicated connection is On-Demand Mail Relay (ODMR). ODMR is a queue/dequeue method of mail delivery in which a remote host or ISP receives and stores all of your email and then gives it to you when you connect to the host to collect it. This method requires authentication before mail is dequeued, and it utilizes a new ESMTP command called ATRN that does not require you to have a static IP address because it immediately reverses the flow of data between you and the server storing your messages.
  Best of all, because the queued messages will be passed to you using the normal SMTP delivery process, no complicated parsing is required as when using DomainPOP. Your MDaemon will receive the messages like it would if it had a dedicated connection.
  
  DomainPOP
  Because not all service providers support the more powerful ODMR method of relaying email, the extensive parsing options built in to MDaemon’s DomainPOP feature make it possible to provide remote email for your entire LAN with as little as a single dial-up ISP POP3 mailbox. Although not as accurate and efficient as ODMR, DomainPOP can nevertheless be used to provide email to an entire network for a fraction of the normally associated cost.
  
  With DomainPOP you simply need a POP3 accessible mailbox hosted by your service provider, and to have all of your domain’s email messages stored in that single mailbox—all mail destined for anyone “@example.com”, for example, is pooled into your example.com mailbox. Using DomainPOP, your MDaemon server connects to your provider at specified intervals, downloads all messages contained in the mailbox, and then disconnects from your provider. Next, DomainPOP parses all of the messages to determine the intended recipients and then deposits them into the appropriate mailboxes.
  
  
• Logging
• MDaemon's logging features are second-to-none. Useful for diagnosing problems and seeing what the server has been doing while unattended, MDaemon’s logging features let you:
  • Log each mail service (SMTP, IMAP, POP3, and so on) in a separate file or combined.
  • Log mail sessions in a summarized or more detailed format.
  • Keep logs in separate files by day or date, or in one large file.
  • Specify size limits for log files.
  • Automatically archive old log files.
  • Specify exactly which activities you wish to log: SMTP, POP, IMAP, AntiVirus, Spam Filtering, Content Filtering, and so on.
  
  
  
• Extensive and Versatile Interface
• The majority of MDaemon’s main features can be accessed quickly from the user interface.
  Multiple movable toolbars contain shortcuts to the primary features. A statistics panel displays statistics regarding the numbers and types of messages sent and received by MDaemon as well as the number of mail sessions that have been initiated since startup—this section also tells you how many user accounts have been used and how many more can be created. There is also a panel that can be used to quickly enable or disable MDaemon’s various components such as SMTP, IMAP, DomainPOP, and AntiVirus. The most prominent section of the interface is the event window. This tabbed section displays the server’s current activities such as: messages being processed, users connected, AntiVirus activities, and so on. You may also view MDaemon’s log files in the main MDaemon window.