Thursday, November 20, 2014

Installing and configuring MailEnable

Guide to installing and configuring MailEnable. Includes pre and post installation requirements.

Configuring the environment
Before installing MailEnable, ensure that the environment has been configured correctly. This includes configuring network connectivity and the Public DNS Server. MailEnable should be configured in an environment with a static IP address but (although not recommended) can be configured to work in environments with dynamic IP addresses using products like dyndns or dns2go, etc.

1. Before installing MailEnable, ensure that the machine can access the Internet (i.e.: ping www.mailenable.com ).
Ensure that other computers can ping the server's IP Address from the Internet (note: technically computers do not need to be able to ping the server, but they will definitely need to be able to connect to TCP/IP Ports 110 and 25 of the server). In most cases, this requires some firewall configuration. For those unfamiliar with configuring firewalls, the best approach is to open all ports and then secure the server by blocking access to specific ports or services as appropriate. If experiencing difficulties with configuring the firewall, consult the respective manuals/resources associated with the operating system and communications infrastructure.

2. Ensure that the correct entries are registered in the DNS. The first step to doing this is to determine who has control of your public DNS records. Contact your ISP or DNS provider to determine who holds the records for the domain. This will allow you to determine who can create new DNS records for the domain. When hosting mail for a domain, each domain being hosted requires a number of DNS records to be created.

It is important to understand the role of DNS and how it relates to running mail servers.

Installing the MailEnable software
Now that the environment is configured, MailEnable can be installed. The product manuals explain how to install MailEnable.  These are installed with the product or available from our website here: http://www.mailenable.com/references.asp

Once MailEnable has been installed, check the MailEnable Diagnostic Report to ensure that all services are configured correctly.

Configuring the MailEnable software
MailEnable provides a 'quick start' guide with basic instructions on configuring and running the MailEnable software.
Quick Start Guide: http://www.mailenable.com/support/MailEnable_Quick_Start_Guide.pdf

Exploring and configuring MailEnable features
Each version of MailEnable has specific features. Review the manual of each respective edition to review and configure some of the more advanced features. See http://www.mailenable.com/references.asp