HOWTO setup mail services using Netscape Messenger.

The Network Concierge uses Sendmail a mail transport agent using the SMTP protocol.  As an E-mail server the Network Concierge will send and receive mail via the Internet/Intranet on behalf of unlimited number attached client machines. E-mail setup is completely automated. All you have to do is setup users and their passwords in order for them to send and receive e-mail – with any standard e-mail utility, such as Outlook Express, Eudora, Netscape Messenger, etc.

You send mail using a fully qualified address similar to user@domain_name where "user" and "domain_name" are valid Network Concierge (NC) user/domain names. For this example the NC domain name that will be used is "brady.com".   Therefore if you wanted to send mail to user “mike”, then you would address the mail to mike@brady.com. The mail application may or may not complain if you do not provide a fully qualified address. It is up to the Email application on how unqualified email addresses are handled before they are sent to the email server (e.g., the Concierge).

Following is an example on how to set up a domain “brady.com” and create valid Network Concierge user accounts.   These users are automatically setup for Concierge mail accounts and any mail to these accounts will be spooled until retrieved by local clients using standard mail applications. To setup the domain name go to the Main Concierge Administrator page by entering the Concierge hostname URL address as shown.

Next click on the Hammer ICON and login to access the Network Concierge Configuration Web Page.  You will need to login as concierge administrator by entering the username “concierge” and the appropriate concierge password to gain access to the NC Configuration Web Page.

After successfully logging in, you can specify the Intranet Domain Name by clicking on the Intranet ICON that will take you to the Intranet configuration form.  From this form, click on the appropriate “Configure” button for the current Intranet mode of operation.  In this example the INTRANET is setup in Automatic mode, therefore we would click on the first Configure button which would pop up the “Intranet automatic configuration form.   From this form you can enter the desired domain name.  For this example we will use the “brady.com” domain name.

After setting up the domain name, you will need to create users.  These users are added to the Network Concierge configuration database by clicking on the “Users” ICON on the “Network Concierge Configuration Web Page”.  From the “User configuration” form, you can add users.  Each user you enter must be given a unique username and a corresponding password.  It is recommended that the username/password pairs match the username/passwords of the local client system, user accounts. The reason for this is that the user is authenticated when attempting to access a Network Concierge share resource via Network Neighborhood.  For this example, I’ve added the entire Brady Bunch clan as users as illustrated by the following “user configuration” form.

Now to setup a Netscape Messenger mail account using the Network Concierge as the mail server start up Netscape.  For this example, I am using Netscape Communicator 4.5. You will need to edit the mail preferences by selecting the Edit à Preferences option from the top toolbar.

Upon launching the Preferences form you will need to expand the Mail & Newsgroups category from which you will setup the user’s preferred mail account.   From the following form select the Identity field to specify the user’s name & email address as shown in the Identity Form below.

Select the Mail Servers category and add the incoming and outgoing mail (SMTP) server
“pop.brady.com” and “mail.brady.com” information respectively that identifies the Network Concierge as the mail server.  Additionally you probably DO NOT want to leave the messages on the server after reading it.

After setting up the incoming and outgoing mail servers you can setup additional mail user preferences such as putting a copy of outgoing mail messages in your “Sent” folder and/or BCC (blank carbon copy) yourself.

Finally after things are set up you can invoke Netscape Messenger to send or receive mail.  You can launch the following mail management screen by selecting Communicator à Messenger on the Netscape toolbar or typing <Ctrl + 2>.  From here you can send or receive mail messages via the Network Concierge mail server.   NOTE:  Mail can be sent to other local Network Concierge users.  In addition, mail can be sent out over the Internet, however, unless the Network Concierge is using registered Internet domain name and a fixed IP address from ISP for this domain, mail can not be routed back.  An alternative reply address for Internet outgoing mail would be required.

To generate a mail message click on “New Msg” and compose your mail message.  You can send to any valid user in the “brady.com” domain.  After creating the message send the mail message by clicking on the “Send” button.

You can check to see if you have any mail by clicking the “Get Msg” button which will retrieve any mailed on the mail server.  Any new mail messages will be placed in your Inbox.

To read any mail in you Inbox simply double click on it.  Again you can send mail to any valid user on your local domain as shown by the example mail messages placed in the Sent folder.