Creating Users in ArgoSoft
The heart of any email system is, of course, users (also known as accounts). Without users or accounts an email system is of little value and almost no use. With users or accounts defined, an email system becomes useful.
One of the reasons that I chose ArgoSoft Pro as my email server was it's powerful user properties. I was especially interested in autoresponders; the antispam functions are powerful as well; and the Xfer capability is wonderful (although far more powerful than ArgoSoft admits in it's documentation).
Creating a user is very simple. Enter Administration mode, then chose "Configuration" from the "Tools" menu. Select a domain name, then chose "New User" from the "add a user" button (the first button to the left).
Each of the attributes that you can define with a user account is described in detail below.
General Tab
User name - Enter the name of the user or account. No spaces are allowed, and the case does not matter. Do not enter the domain name at this point; it will be added later when messages are sent using this account.
Real name - This is a name to be displayed. It is optional. This name is displayed along with the email address on messages that are sent using this account.
Password - Enter a password, needed to access the account via the web interface. This is also used if you take advantage of SMTP authentication (highly recommended).
Confirm password - Enter the password again to make sure you've spelled the password correctly.
Active - Check this box to indicate the account is active and may be used. If you want to disable the account, clear the box.
Mailbox Size - Set this to zero to allow an unlimited size mailbox. Otherwise, set it to the number of megabytes that are allowed at any one time.
Forward Address - If you want your email forwarded to another address, enter the email address here. Include the domain name.
Keep Copies - Check this box if you want to keep copies of any forwarded email in this account.
Return Address - Used for the return address of the email. If the recipient replies to a message, then this is where the reply will be sent.
Aliases Tab
The
Aliases tab is very useful if you happen to have a number of email accounts
that are more or less the same address. For example, I've set up an account
called "richlowe" with the following aliases:
- rlowe
- richardlowe
- richardlowejr
- rlowejr
- lowejr
- lowe
These, and other additional names, means that email will be properly routed to me no matter how someone spells my name in an email address.
Other uses include legacy names. In my email system at work, my name was entered as "rlowe". We changed our standard to be in the form "richard.lowe". However, in order to allow email messages to reach me, I added an alias of "rlowe" in the email account "richard.lowe".
Filters Tab
This is described in the section on ArgoSoft Pro antispam.
Xfer Tab
This
is a very useful section, as it describes an external email account (both
POP3 and SMTP) which is associated with this email address. This external
email account can be polled occasionally and any messages will be delivered
to this email account.
The SMTP section describes the SMTP server name to be associated with this account. Any emails sent to this account will be forwarded to the SMTP account as well.
Any emails in the POP3 account will be picked up occasionally and sent to this account.
Interestingly, this is documented in the ArgoSoft help and documentation as specifically not usable for retrieving messages from an external POP3 account. The documentation states this is only for creating a backup email server. HOWEVER, I've found this function works perfectly for exactly the purpose of retrieving emails from an external account. Thus, I have created one account which periodically (once an hour) retrieves all of the messages from my ISP account. I then read my messages from the ArgoSoft Pro account.
Autoresponder Tab
This is described in the section on ArgoSoft Pro autoresponders.