pop3/smtp

[noahzenzen]

I have just finished installing Plesk 7.5.3 reloaded on RedHat 7.3 and everything seems to be working fine. My question is in configuring my email client (outlook).

I should mention that webmail is working just fine in terms of being able to send and recieve email.

I was under the impression that Plesk automatically configured pop3 and smtp services but when I go into my outlook and configure an email account it says that it can't contact the server. Can someone tell me what the formal settings would be for the client? I would assume that it is simply pop3.domain.com and smtp.domain.com. Is that correct?

About the only thing that I can think of is my DNS settings need to have pop3.domain.com pointed to my server IP address which I admit I just configured about 1 hour ago.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Noah

 

[jamesyeeoc]

DNS settings need to have pop3.domain.com pointed to my server IP address which I admit I just configured about 1 hour ago

Sounds like you need to wait for the DNS changes to propagate.

In the mean time, you can either config Outlook for the server's IP directly (instead of pop.domain.com/smtp.domain.com) or add an entry in the Windows HOSTS file temporarily.

 

[noahzenzen]

I tried the server IP and that worked just fine. Do you know if I just have to put pop3.domain.com and smtp.domain.com in plesk?

The website where I registered the domain has my plesk server as the names servers so I don't think I have to do anything else there.

Thanks for the help, I'll wait until it propagates.

 

[jamesyeeoc]

You can either do 2 entries (pop3.domain.com and smtp.domain.com) or you can do just one (mail.domain.com), it's entirely up to how you prefer to do it. For my clients, I like to keep it simple and just do a single entry (mail.domain.com) MX record.

If you also have a backup mail server, then you would add an additional MX record for that one as well. (This is covered in other posted threads)

 

[noahzenzen]

Thanks!

I really appreciate you taking the time to help me out with this. This is my first Plesk server so I am just getting use to how everything works. I do plan on having another Plesk server down the road as my business grows but right now this one is plenty.

Thanks again for your help... I do have a mail.domain.com for an MX record....

Host = domain.com
value = mail.domain.com

Are you saying that all I need to do is give the mail.domain.com to my customers to put in their pop3/smtp area of their client?

Noah

 

[jamesyeeoc]

That is exactly what I do. Whether it's Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, or whatever, the client just has to put 'mail.domain.com' for both the incoming and outgoing server name/IP field. Then once the DNS has propagated, all should be fine.

Don't forget to set the Plesk SMTP authorization! Under Server - Mail, set it for 'authorization is required' and checkmark SMTP (no checkmark for POP3).

Then in the client's email client (say Outlook), they will have to put a checkmark for 'My Server Requires Authentication', then also 'Use same settings as incoming server'.

This prevents open relays and some spamming.

It would also help to make sure all email user passwords are not 'simple' passwords.

The option for use of 'short or full' versus 'full pop/smtp only' is up to you. If you choose to enforce the 'full names' option, then the client would have to put '[email protected]' as the login name rather than just 'username'.

 

[noahzenzen]

Thank you very much!!!