Updated: January 16, 2001
In order for your server
to receive email that is directed to your domain name, you must setup the
SMTP mail program. Something that you probably didn't know was that
all mail that gets directed to your domain will end up on your server,
however, your server cannot distribute the mail to individual users unless
your have additional software setup to act as a POP server or some other
type of mail server. So instead, the mail will all be dropped into
a directory on your hard disk and you can simply read it there. This
works great if you're the only one who gets mail at a particular domain
name, but if you want to create user accounts so other people can get email
from your website, then you'll have to explore other mail serving programs.
Here we'll go through the
quick and dirty way of just funneling all email directed to your domain
(admin@dslwebserver, dork@dslwebserver, *@dslwebserver.com) into a folder
which you can access later. If you don't go through the process,
your mail will be bounced from the server and you will never get it.
Here you can learn from my
mistakes. I have several domains names/websites and I thought that
you had to create a new virtual server for each domain name/website.
I found out that you may or may not have to do this.
If you have several domain
names and each domain names is associated with its own IP number, then
you create a new virtual SMTP server for each IP number.
However, if you are like
me and have several websites that are sharing just 1 IP number, then you
do not create new virtual SMTP servers but create aliases within each virtual
SMTP server.
Got it? Good.
Here we'll go through how
to create aliases for a new domain name within the current virtual SMTP
server.
Here we go:
Let's first get to the Internet
Services Manager where we can control the setup of our webserver.
Start -> Settings -> Control
Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Internet Services Manager
Scroll down to "Default SMTP
Virtual Server" and click on the "+" sign to expand the view.
Right click on "Domains",
select "New", then select "Domain"
A wizard pops up and asks
for an option. Choose on "Alias". Click "Next".
Here you will enter the domain
name that the virtual SMTP webserver will receive email from. I enter
"dslwebserver.com". Click on "Finish" and we're done!
Now your webserver will receive
all email directed towards that domain and dump it into "C:\Inetpub\mailroot\Drop"
The email will not have a pretty name but instead will look like "0dfd619001c06fd000000448"
If you double click on the file, Outlook will launch and open the email.
From there you can handle it just like any other piece of email.
I made a shortcut on my desktop to the "Drop" folder so I don't have to
dig through the directory to check email.
Use Explorer and go to "C:\Inetpub\mailroot\Drop"
Right click on "Drop" then click "Send to" then select "Desktop (Create
Shortcut)". Just double click on the shortcut to check your email!
Email yourself from a web
based or unix based email program and you should see the email immediately
show up in your Drop box. You can also see that I created a sub directory
called "Old" within the "Drop" folder. This way I can move email
I want to keep into the "Old" folder and keep things organized.
Low tech, but it works great
for me.
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