Gateways and Other Server Roles

Please note that SmarterMail was designed to support one server in several of these roles. For instance, one server could act as an Inbound Gateway, Outbound Gateway, or Backup MX.

SmarterMail can also take on one of these roles when placed together with a competing mail server product. For example, using SmarterMail as an outbound gateway on a server other than your primary mail server may help to resolve problems with stability of other mail server software products.

Primary mail server

• Use for storing email for defined users.
• Accessible through POP, SMTP, IMAP, and over the web.

Backup MX Server

• Use as a backup for mail delivery in case of short amounts of downtime or delivery problems on your primary mail server. See more on the Backkup MX Servers page of Help.

Inbound Gateway server

The FREE, one-domain version will suffice for virtually all environments.

• Use to host third party anti-virus and/or anti-spam software products in order to reduce load on primary server.
• Reduces load on primary server by managing all incoming sessions and performing abuse/intrusion detection.

Outbound Gateway server

The FREE, one-domain version will suffice for virtually all environments.

• Use as a delivery mechanism to reduce load on your primary servers.
• Also use as a method to combat blacklisting. If the server gets blacklisted, rotate the primary IP on the network card to a different one to send out on the new IP.

SmartGateway server

The FREE, one-domain version will suffice for virtually all environments.

• Use as a delivery mechanism to balance the load on your gateway servers.