Glossary

Account - An account consists of an email address and a password, used to log into a mail server to retrieve or send mail.

Administrator - The person or company that purchased and installed SmarterMail Professional Edition on a server with abilities to set global configurations and create and delete email domains and end users.

Alias - An email address representing another address that only forwards received mail to another address or group of addresses. For example, if your email address is you@example.com and you wanted to make an account for purchases without actually having separate inboxes to check, simply create the email Alias purchases@example.com and the mail for purchases will be redirected to your original mailbox.

APOP - APOP stands for Authenticated Post Office Protocol. Every mail connection made sends your username and password across the network in clear text (no encryption). With APOP, your password is encrypted while being transmitted over the Internet.

Auto Responder - A preconfigured message immediately sent back to anyone you receive an email from.

Blacklist - Block email from email addresses and domains added to this list.

Content Filtering - Content Filtering allows a user to search incoming messages for certain words or string of words. Messages containing the filtered items can be acted upon, for example deleting them so it never reaches its final destination, or moving them to a separate folder away from the main inbox.

DNS Server - A DNS Server is a computer designated to holding a list of domain names and their corresponding IP addresses. For the purposes of SmarterMail, some Domain Name Servers hold a list of domain names and IP addresses associated with mass spam mail outs. SmarterMail makes it possible for administrators to enter the URL and take advantage of these Domain Name Servers to filter out mail from known spammers.

Domain - A domain is the name associated with the last half of an email address, it resides after the @ symbol (e.g. in support@example.com, example.com is the domain).

Domain Administrator - The owner of a particular domain responsible for adding and deleting email accounts and setting configurations associated with that domain. The domain administrator account also functions like a standard user account in that it can send and receive mail, manage contacts, etc.

Domain Alias - An additional domain that forwards received mail to another address or group of addresses. For example, you may have two email addresses with different domain names, to combine their inboxes, add one email address to the Domain Alias List.

End User - A person who uses SmarterMail to send and receive mail, manage contacts and calendar events, etc. whether using the webmail client, a desktop client or mobile device.

Folder Auto-Clean - Automatic deletion of older messages when a folder reaches a certain size. Used to keep folders like Junk Email under control.

Forward - To redirect a received email to another email address.

IMAP / IMAP4 - Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is a standard protocol for accessing email from your local server. IMAP (the latest version is IMAP4) is a client/server protocol in which email is received and held for you by your Internet server. IMAP requires continual access to the server during the time that you are working with your mail.

IP Address - Internet Protocol address is the numeric physical address of any computer. Therefore, you can access a computer by entering either the domain name or the IP address for the domain (e.g. 127.0.0.1).

IP Bypass - Pardon IP addresses from SMTP authentication enabled on any domain. This is often used to allow clients who have applications that do not support SMTP authentication to bypass this check.

IP4R / RBL List - A DNS lookup that attempts to determine if a mail server is likely to be sending spam. You take the IP address of the mail server, turn it around, and query a "DNS zone", to come up with something like "2.0.0.127.relays.example.com". If the mail server is listed in the spam database you queried, it will return an answer indicating that the mail server is listed.

LDAP - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is a communication protocol for accessing online directory services. Programs like Outlook and Thunderbird use LDAP to retrieve contact lists from SmarterMail.

List Server - A list server (mailing list server) is a program, or a feature in a program, that handles subscription requests for a mailing list and distributes new messages, newsletters, or other postings from the list's members to the entire list of subscribers as they occur or are scheduled. Note: A list server should not be confused with a mail server, which handles incoming and outgoing email for Internet users.

Mailbox - A folder that contains messages.

Mailing List - A mailing list is a list of people who subscribe to a periodic mailing distribution on a particular topic. Mailing lists include each person's email address. Mailing lists have become a popular way for Internet users to keep up with topics they're interested in. Many software producers and other vendors are now using them as a way to keep in touch with customers.

POP / POP3 - With Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) your mail is saved for you in your mailbox on the mail server. When you read your mail, all of it is immediately downloaded to your computer and no longer maintained on the mail server.

Postmaster - A required default email account for a domain. In order to receive email from the postmaster account, it has to be forwarded to another email address.

Relay - Allows an SMTP server to accept any email destined for other hosts and re-deliver that mail to the proper host, much like a track and field relay race where the SMTP servers are the runners and the email message is the baton.

SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is a TCP/IP (Internet) protocol used in sending and receiving email. However, since it's limited in its ability to queue messages at the receiving end, it's usually used with one of two other protocols, POP3 or IMAP, that let the user save messages in a server mailbox and download them periodically from the server. In other words, users typically use a program that uses SMTP for sending email and either POP3 or IMAP for receiving messages that have been received for them at their local server.

SMTP Authentication - When the mail server requires an email address and password that matches an account in order to send mail, as opposed to requiring just an email address.

Spam Check - A resource used for checking the validity of an email sender.

Spam List - Some Domain Name Servers (DNS) on the Internet contain a list of addresses from mail servers that are solely used for email spam. Therefore, the Spam List is an editable list of DNS' so you can compare your incoming mail to those known spam email servers and filter them out accordingly (An example of an "antispam" DNS is opm.blitzed.org).

Spam Weight - The weight is a value assigned to a spam check according to its validity and competency. Generally, the higher the weight, the more likely an email message is spam.

Spool - A directory on the mail server that holds emails before they are viewed or downloaded from a client.

Stats - The overall calculations about email from a domain including total messages and bandwidth.

URL - The Uniform Resource Locator is an address that links to a web page or web server that is usually entered into the top of a browser.

User - A client with an email account.

Web Interface - The point of access for administrators and end users to the Mail Server via browser.

Webmail - An interface for sending and receiving email through the use of a browser instead of an email program (e.g. Outlook). SmarterMail's webmail client is as powerful and feature-rich as any desktop or mobile email client.

Web Service - A Web Service is a remote application interface that a program can connect to in order to obtain information or execute commands through standard internet ports (typically port 80, the same port used by a typical web browser)

Whitelist - Add an email address to this list to accept all mail from the sender, regardless of Black List restrictions.