PreSales, Trying out MailEnable Pro Setup scenario

[TekTraveler]

Greetings Mail Enablers!
I am currently suggesting that a 50-employee SMB/SME client who is also a dear friend of mine use MailEnable for his busy safari tour company operation since they need to retain copies of customer emails for a few years due to government industry regulations.

I installed it yesterday on their internal office server (a dual processor 16-core Intel Xeon, 64gb RAM HP Proliant) running Windows Server 2016 Professional which sits behind a fiber router from the company's Internet Service Provider. Assume the server's IP address is 192.168.10.20 and the Windows server name is SafariMail.

Note: Current Mail Setup
All staff currently download emails from a popular web hosting company on a shared hosting plan with unlimited storage & other excellent features. Assume domain name is safari.com. The company also has other domain names that are not being used much and is subscribed to 2 fiber Internet providers in order to maintain reliable Internet access to handle bookings.

Questions:
1a) Can we setup MailEnable Pro to connect to the current web host and download all safari.com emails into its local PostOffice?
1b) If yes to 1a, how do we accomplish this in the Setup/configuration? Link?
1c) If no to 1a, does this mean MailEnable has to be the master mail server for domain safari.com - even though it is sitting behind a router/firewall?

2a) We have another spare domain name to play around ( safari2.com ) which I used when setting up MailEnable yesterday.
Would I still have to go into CPanel on the shared webhost and update MX records in DNS Zones to point to this "local" internal mail server??

2b) Since this is an internal mail server (for now), is it better to just use the ip address 192.168.10.20 as the incoming/outgoing mail server name when setting up Outlook clients?
2c) Would MailEnable users on this internal server still be able to send emails to the outside world if/when the need arose?

Many thanks for your replies.

[Admin]

You can get it to download all email to the local server, but it is a 1 to 1 mapping. So it can only pull from one remote mailbox to one local mailbox. You can't have it pull from one remote account and then have it sort the email in that mailbox to multiple local accounts. But if the employees have their own mailbox on current webhost you can configure it to pull the email to the local mailbox using POP3. Did they want to move all their email in house? If not it may be easier for archival purposes to use something like MailStore to backup/archive their email from the web hosting company.

You can add safari2.com as a domain, it should be fine as long as it is in your DNS. It won't need the MX record, if it is internal, since email clients don't use the MX. But in your email clients you can just use the IP address as you indicate, and not bother putting in DNS since it will only be useful to help with accessing webmail or configuring a client without knowing the IP.

If the server can make a connection over port 25 to an external address, then yes, it can send email to the outside world. You can test this on the server by opening a command prompt and entering:

telnet mail.mailenable.com 25

If it connects you can send email. There are other factors though that can affect delivery, like your IP reputation, whether it is on blacklists, etc. You also really need to set up SPF/DKIM for the domains you are sending from, since places like Gmail check these.

[TekTraveler]

Many thanks for your speedy reply, Admin! Much appreciated!

You can get it to download all email to the local server, but it is a 1 to 1 mapping. So it can only pull from one remote mailbox to one local mailbox.

This is perfect. I forgot to mention that whenever Product or Sales staff reply to a client email, they must copy (Cc) a safari.com email address (ie. archive_sales@safari.com) etc.) so that a communication trail can be followed easily.

So we will definitely create archive_sales@safari.com and other archive email addresses on the MailEnable local server where said emails will remain for a very long time, but can be quickly accessed internally via WebMail or Outlook (IMAP and only downloading headers). So this issue is sorted.
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Did they want to move all their email in house? If not it may be easier for archival purposes to use something like MailStore to backup/archive their email from the web hosting company.

I will enquire with the client. But I am certain they would like the ability for some staff to get through the router/firewall (perhaps by port forwarding, etc.) to be able to access the MailEnable server. MailStore does look like an interesting or complimentary product though. I will mention it to the client.
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You can add safari2.com as a domain, it should be fine as long as it is in your DNS. It won't need the MX record, if it is internal, since email clients don't use the MX. But in your email clients you can just use the IP address as you indicate

Yes, this was also my conclusion with using the static IP address for incoming/outgoing mail server. And it will be a big plus with port forwarding if/when the client wants outside staff to be able to access the new internal mail server.
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If the server can make a connection over port 25 to an external address, then yes, it can send email to the outside world. You can test this on the server by opening a command prompt and entering:

telnet mail.mailenable.com 25
If it connects you can send email.

I will definitely try this when I'm back on the server. Thanks for the tip. I know some ISPs are fussy about having port 25 open, so I'll confirm. And I will definitely read up on how to properly set up DKIM, SPF etc. in order to improve mail delivery success.

Can MailEnable act as a mail server for multiple domains at the same time with their own email accounts?

Kind regards!

[Admin]

Yes, you can run as many domains as you want, the server will know where to deliver them locally by their domain. So you would create a postoffice for each client, which can have one or more domains under it - it is usually easiest to name the postoffice the same as their main domain.

[TekTraveler]

Hi Admin,
Thanks so much for the assistance earlier.

Ok, here's the deal. I am not able to get Outlook 2019 which is installed on the same server (192.10.10.16) to finish the Account Setup by adding a local account.

Note: MailEnable System Overview looks good; all services running without any problems. In MailEnable Management console, the Services Status under Servers-->localhost are all running with green checkmarks.

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Diagnostics/Troubleshooting:
1. Turned off Windows Firewall (Public & Private) completely until I can successfully send & receive locally (not thinking about Internet yet!).

2. Can successfully ping the server from Windows desktops and my Linux desktop.

3. Tried Account Setup with POP3 (port 110) & IMAP (port 143) with & without SSL encryption while using SMTP server port 25 (no SSL).

4. Added/installed SMTP feature in Windows Server Manager and restarted.
Note: I assumed MailEnable (ME) would have its own outgoing SMTP server so I enabled this feature just in case ME needed this turned on in order to send emails.

5. Added an email account in Thunderbird (Linux), created a test email and attempted to send it to a local ME email account. But I keep getting the following error message:

Sending of the message failed.
The message could not be sent because connecting to Outgoing server (SMTP) 192.10.10.16 failed. The server may be unavailable or is refusing SMTP connections. Please verify that your Outgoing server (SMTP) settings are correct and try again.

6> Telnet command as you instructed doesn't connect.

~$ telnet 192.10.10.16 25
Trying 192.10.10.16...
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

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So there you have it! Any ideas??
Do I need to install another service or do something in MailEnableAdmin??

Kind regards!

[Admin]

Try using telnet on the actual server. Try the internal IP address. You cannot use the Microsoft SMTP service on the same IP address, so you should remove this. Since telnet does not work, either it is connectivity over port 25 to the server or the SMTP service is not listening on that IP address/port. Hence you needing to test telnet on the server itself first.

[TekTraveler]

Ok I will uninstall the SMTP feature in Server Manager when I go back to visit my friend's office later today or tomorrow. Thanks.

Try the internal IP address.

So you mean the localhost IP address of 127.0.0.1?
Please confirm.

Since telnet does not work, either it is connectivity over port 25 to the server or the SMTP service is not listening on that IP address/port.

By the way, I had changed the Windows SMTP port to listen on port 26 instead of 25 yesterday via the MMC just in case "something" doesn't like port 25 being used. But it wouldn't have mattered anyways because ME doesn't use said SMTP service. So I am going to uninstall the SMTP feature as mentioned above.

Is there a place in MailEnable to check/confirm/verify which port it is using for SMTP?
Lastly, after peeking at this article below, it seems telnet is probably disabled by default so I will enable it when I get back on the server and then update you.

How to enable Telnet on Windows Server 2016/2019
https://www.osradar.com/how-to-enable-telnet-on-windows-server-2016-2019/

Kind regards!
Tek Traveler

[TekTraveler]

Greetings Support!
Ok, here is my current situation as of right now on the server...
Note1: Windows Firewall is disabled for both Public & Private.
Note2: Diagnostic Report shows green pass for everything except 2 orange warnings:
a) Unlicensed: (1E) No license key has been configured this server. Software has been in evaluation for 21 days.
b) Error: Could not reverse lookup 192.10.10.16 in DNS, error 9003. Warning: No Ptr Record found For Domain.
c) No SPF record found for MAILSERVER.domain123.africa. (DNS_ERROR_RCODE_NAME_ERROR) - DNS Zone/Domain could not be found.
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Task performed:
1) After installing Telnet Client feature on Windows Server, the command telnet mail.mailenable.com 25 now works on the server as well as from my Linux Mint laptop. Also, telnet 192.10.10.16 25 works in a Powershell window on the same server but not from Linux Mint Terminal which is giving me an Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused message.

2) Next, I went into Outlook 2019 which is installed on the server and added an email account for domain123.africa. First used POP3 with no SSL and 192.10.10.16 as incoming & outgoing SMTP server. But it keeps asking for a correct password via an annoying popup box. So I copied & pasted it correctly from a text file, but it still complains. I even enter the password using the keyboard, but still annoying message.

3) So I go into Control Panel --> Mail(Microsoft Outlook) (32bit) app and enter all of the info so that it will physically save the details. When I go to create a test email, the pop password nag for the email account returns. So I change the password in MailEnable Manage Console under PostOffices --> Mailboxes but still nagging password problem.

4) Went to Servers --> localhost --> Services and Connectors --> (right click) ---> Properties to confirm POP port is 110. Also enabled APOP authentication then stop & restarted the POP service. No luck, still getting Outlook password popup nag for email account support@domain123.africa!
So I go back into Properties and unchecked APOP authentication, stopped & restarted the POP service since that was the default. No luck!

5) Went to Thunderbird ver102, added the email account details, used Connection security (none) with Authentication method set to Password, transmitted insecurely. Created a test email to send to accounts@domain123.africa and got a Send Message Error box with the following error message:

Sending of the message failed.
The message could not be sent because connecting to Outgoing server (SMTP) 192.10.10.16 failed. The server may be unavailable or is refusing SMTP connections. Please verify that your Outgoing server (SMTP) settings are correct and try again.

6. From server, opened Chrome and visited http://mewebmail.localhost/. Entered email address and password but got Unknown or Disabled User! message even though the email accounts are enabled in Management Console.
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Sooo, unless you have any other suggestions, I will be totally out of luck in taking MailEnable for a proper test drive.

Kind regards!