checking email securely (non-webmail)

[cyphixation]

hey folks,

i'm new here and did a quick search on the forums ("secure email") and didn't find what i was looking for.

Can someone point me in the direction of the best, non-webmail way to allow email users (other than myself) to securely (encrypted) check their email? i find that a lot of people i deal with would rather use a client than webmail - is there anyway to do this here at dathorn?

i suppose i could force people to use webmail if they want security, but was hoping there is a client/setup that will allow more freedom.

Thank you in advance.

[Frank Hagan]

They can use their regular email client, such as Outlook Express, to log in and check their emails.

For customers with Cpanel, you can have them use the "auto configure" routine under the "Mail" icon:

Because Microsoft Outlook Express is the most popular email application available, you can automatically configure Outlook Express from CPanel. This saves time in manually configuring your email application and avoids errors.

Note: This will only work if you have Microsoft Outlook installed on your machine and are running any version of Windows.

To automatically configure Outlook Express:

Click on the Add / Remove accounts link in the Mail Menu area.

Click on the Outlook (Express) AutoConfig link next to the required account.

Read the message in the alert window and click on the OK button. You may need to repeat this step two or three times.

Click on the Open this file from its current location radio button, and click on the OK button in the File Download window.

Click on the Yes button in the Registry Editor window and repeat for the last window. Outlook Express has now been configured for this account. You need to repeat this process for as many accounts as you want to access through Outlook Express.

You can manually configure Outlook Express without access to Cpanel (such as for your users with email addresses).

I'm working from memory, but IIRC, the settings are:

SMTP: mail.yourdomain.com
POP: mail.yourdomain.com

Username: username+yourdomain.com
Password: <your password>

Where "yourdomain.com" is your domain name, and "username" is the username for the email account.

Some email clients may not like the "username+yourdomain.com" format; sometimes using the "@" sign works.

[cyphixation]

Still wondering about the actual authentication..

Thank you for the quick reply, but i wasn't so much interested to know what/how they could use such clients, i was interested in whether or not dathorn mail servers support secure versions of pop and smtp (or i was missing some docs).

i've wrestled with my own service provider here at the house to get us an email server that allows encrypted authentication and mail transfer....watching my email uid and password go out across the wire, unencrypted, with ethereal is not something that i enjoy, hence i must use their webmail interface, which they have encrypted for login, but not for the remainder of the session.

So, i guess i'm asking for secure email retrival if it's available here.

* i just watched my password and uid in plain text go out over the wire using an email client (thunderbird in this case) and using the Horde webmail frontend.

[Byon]

Has anyone determined if this is possible yet?

[Pedja]

Dathorn does support secured POP3/SMTP. Just turn on the option in your mail client.

[samsam]

I think cyphixation is really asking if the POP3 and SMTP email servers on Dathorn support security features like secure password authentication and SSL encryption, and how would he get same to work.

The only way to really find out, cyphixation, I suggest, would be to play with an email client that supports those security features (Outlook Express, Pegasus Mail, Thunderbird etc) and see what happens when you use them on Dathorn.

Or investigate whether there are any other tech options to achieve a better level of security when checking Dathorn email.

There may, for example, be a way of getting some sort of SSL tunnelling happening, where the ports for POP3 and SMTP access are put down a SSL or other encrypted connection...??

Dathorn does support encryption on services like SSH, so something might be possible.

Let us know if anything works out.

[jsilver]

Turning on secure email in Mail client

Dathorn does support secured POP3/SMTP. Just turn on the option in your mail client.

I tried this, but it just gives an error. How do you set it up?

[Byon]

Cert Domain Name Mismatch Error

I enabled Use SSL for my IMAP accounts using Thunderbird. I am able to connect, if I accept the certificate, but every time, I get the Domain Name Mismatch warning, complaining that certificate returned belongs to "dathoninternetservices.client.servermatrix.co m". I get this if I try to connect to my domain, one of my other domains with an installed SSL cert for that domain, or cpanel09b.gzo.com.

I assume that the cause is that Dathorn uses a single cert for IMAP SSL for all machines, rather than a cert for each machine. Is it possible to get around this warning?

(I am in the process of switching to SSL only Dathorn access. So far I have whm and cpanel working. IMAP is mostly done, except for this warning. SFTP is next)

Thanks,
Byon