Mailpigeon manualMailpigeon is a Postfix based MTA by Gayatri Hitech. It is a full fledged mail transfer agent(mail server) with ability to draw reports, perform addressbook lookups using LDAP, webmail, mail aliases and procmail rules for automated mail processing.

All standard mail server features are available and you can setup a fully functional mail server in minutes and setup user accounts in a jiffy using simple file import.

You can also create mail groups and aliases using drag and drop. You can monitorthe usage of mailbox sizes, tweak the mail sending and receiving rates as well as use tools for calendering, tasks and notes. Mailpigeon is iCal compatible and also comes with a web interface with Ajax and folder drag and drop a la MS Outlook.

MailPigeon can be used in concert with SpamCheetah also from Gayatri Hitech for spam control and other features offered by an industry standard e-mail security gateway product.

MailPigeon also comes with industry standard clustering features and load sharing by using MX weights. You can also setup offsite backup mail servers as well as make MailPigeon serve as backup mail servers for other mail servers.

You can control relaying, create users with restricted access and so on.

After you configure the IP address, network mask and gateway using the nCursesscreen you have to login using the web panel which looks like this.

After you login, the dashboard is shown which lists down the high level parameters of interest to the administrator. The dashboard is updated automatically by the browser to show the current information.

You can start with the Setup -> Install MailPigeon menu. You can change the IP address of the appliance in case you desire. Also setup additional alias network addresses or setup static routes.

You can also configure the domain and certain high level parameters like local network range and enable or disable webmail and LDA protocols.

Then you can setup some more parameters using the Generic Settings menu next. Enable mail archival, setup virtual users and setup mail server to domain maps for relaying to remote mail servers.

Following that we have to setup users as without mail users a mail server cannotdo much.

The user creation in MailPigeon can be done either using the one by one manual addition or importing a file with the following info in a line per user:

user,Display name,password,group,phone

You have to create a separate line per user created.

You can also specify the alias to which the user should belong to.

Groups can only be one per user but a user can belong to any number of aliases.

This Aliases and Groups menu helps you organize the user groups by using simple drag and drop operations. This screen is very user friendly and does not require much hand holding.

MailPigeon comes with integrated chat facility and you can easily setup chat rooms and use any Jabber compatible client like pidgin or even use web chat.

Then you have the LDAP addressbook menu. You can perform LDAP lookups as well as configure the LDAP server parameters like search base and so on.

Next you have the Webmail settings menu. It is just to change the logo of webmail with your corporate logo and also change the webmail URL from the default http://<ip>/webmail/ address.

You have the ability to add a header or footer to every mail transiting MailPigeonconfigured using the Header/footer addition menu item.

Note that adding a header field is not a performance bottleneck but adding a footer can slow down mail.

You are better off doing it at the e-mail secuirty gateway level.

You can set time and date using the Time menu. You can also configure the timezone to suit your geographic location.

Then you move on to Server components -> Calender/Scheduler menu.

You have an iCal compatible calender in MailPigeon. You can access the calender using a separate URL but the settings are done here.

Then you can setup mail forwarding using the Mail forward menu.

You can forward mail within the mail server domain as well to any outside mail address.

You can read the mailboxes of users or purge the mailbox using this screen.

It is a very rudimentary mail client that talks the IMAP LDA protocol.

Next you have the Public folders menu using which you can setup Windows shares between mail users.

You then have the IMAP/POP3 settings to configure mail downloading to clientslike MS Outlook.

You can also setup a mailing list for local discussions, search and archival of threads using the Mailing list menu item.

You can setup vacation rules for employees going on leave. You could also forward mails to your managers using the forward option. Also remember that MailPigeon comes with a user interface for each user to login and use. It is not necessary to depend upon the administrator for user actions. But what the user can do admin always can.

You can setup mailbots for performing certain predefined automated actions likeweather lookup, dictionary lookup and setup FTP serving of files using the mailbot feature.

You can setup monitoring of MailPigeon server parameters using the Monit menu item. E-mail alerts can be setup and limits defined for CPU, memory , swapusage.

We then move to the next top level menu Server Controls -> Rate Controls. MailPigeon has some firewall level mail rate control and TCP state parameters that you can tweak to your taste. But the higher level Postfix parameters in the same page are of more interest to a sys admin.

Then you have the Relaying controls menu item. You can control the additional domains you relay mail for and also setup backup mail domains.

Following that you can view Mail and disk quotas menu. With this menu you can set and inspect the fine grained user mailbox and mail storage quotas.

You can set quotas and generally any parameter per user or per group user is part of.

Then you have the User controls menu for some advanced knobs to control userbehavior with mail. Some countries and companies may require this.

You then have some procmail rules in Kill rules. Ability to perform more genericprocmail rules will be made available in future releases.

MailPigeon has a feature to create temporary users that expire after a certain time period set by the administrator.

This could be used to create mail Ids that the system administrator need not remember to delete after use. This prevents abuse and eases the job of the admin.

Then you go to the next top level menu item System internals -> Mail transit.Using this menu you can inspect the speed at which MailPigeon receives mail traffic live in a guage display as well as view the bar graphs of the mail traffic youhave received over the week and month.

You then have the biggest screen of MailPigeon, the system internals display which shows the list of diagnostic tools you have at your disposal for health checking, tools for checking network connectivity, DNS resolution and also look at the routing table and mail queues.

This pagelists all ofthefeaturesthat youwill needtoperformadvanced

diagnostics on MailPigeon.

Then you can view the SMTP handshakes done by MailPigeon to send and receive mails live with the Live mail view menu.

You can then inspect the mail Queue in detail and also take actions on certain mails or all of them using the options given in the page.

You thenhave thegraphslisted inthe Graphsview.

You canview averyshortsummaryof the

MailPigeon vital parameters in the Reporting menu item.

You then have the mail archive view for inspecting the mails in the archive of Mailpigeon. Note that even moderate traffic mail servers have a high growth of mail archives. So it is best if you archive only outgoing mail traffic. Or create some extra storage to file away archives.

Using this page you can search and retrieve info as well as create reports that can be exported to MS Excel, HTML or PDF.

You then have the log views of SMTP logs, IMAP/POP3 logs, Edit logs and Syslog.

Finally you have syslog.

Then you move on to the Utility -> Web interface menu item. Using this menu you can set UI themes, restore the configuration values to default, upload a new Logo etc.

Following this you have the Access menu item. You can configure the networks that have access to MailPigeon and those networks that should be rejected at a packet level itself.

Then you have the Backup menu item in which you can perform backup and restore of internal databases of MailPigeon as well as the configuration files where all changes are kept. You can also take automated backups by rsnapshot UNIX utility using this menu.

You can perform complete OS ghosting for saving and restoring the MailPigeon appliance on identical hardware or VM using this menu. You require an FTP server to upload the OS image on the local LAN.

You have the license information the Product licensing page. You have to uploadthe license file sent to you after purchase using this interface.

You then have the Remote syslog menu. You can view the logging live with a local UDP server which even Windows machines can do.

You can setup a simple SNMP agent using this SNMP menu.

Then you have the Shutdown menu using which you can reboot and shutdown the mail server for maintenance purposes.

Following which you have the SNMP monitoring menu in which a locally running SNMP manager fetches all the SNMP parameters spat out by MailPigeon.

You then have the Contrywise view of the mail traffic landing in MailPigeon. You have the list of countries sending you mail in a choropleth view in which each color and its tone tells you very easily the amount of mail traffic originating fromthe nation.

The top 50 countries are also shown in a table below for accurate numbers.

Finally the Clustering -> Cluster menu item sets up a MailPigeon cluster.

MailPigeon comes with out of the box clustering using which you can trivially setup a cluster of mail servers and load share the traffic using MX weights.

MailPigeon comes with built in 100% guarantee by using the CARP protocol(Common Address Redundancy Protocol) which can effectively perform a 100% uptime master slave deployment of MailPigeon in which downtimes are reduced to just 200 milliseconds.

Here is the screen.

Finally MailPigeon is not just about mail. It is much more. Thought has gone into performing even the mundane tasks with accuracy, grace and ease. To combat spam Gayatri Hitech has created SpamCheetah which is a spam and virus filtering e-mail security gateway product which can be used in concert with MailPigeon MTA.