Email hosting questions
- What are my options for receiving email?
- How does email spam and virus protection work?
- Why outgoing mail cannot be sent via Anchor
What are my options for receiving email?
There are three different methods of handling email on your domain name with the web hosting service.
- Redirect/Forward to another mail server
- Store mail on Anchor's mail server and retrieve with a mail client
- Operate an internal mail server
Control over the way email is handled on your domain can be changed at any time. The control panel allows you to update email settings for your hosting account quickly and easily.
Option 1. Redirect/Forward mail
If you already have an email account, we can simply forward mail on your domain to existing email addresses.
E.g john.smith@webdeveloper.com.au -> webdeveloper@bigpond.com.au
The advantage of having your email forwarded to an existing email address is that you can receive email from both addresses and you do not have to reconfigure your email client.
Mail is generally forwarded to an ISP provided email account or existing corporate email account.
Option 2. Store Mail on Anchor's mail server
If email is stored on Anchor's mail server you have three options for retrieving your email, all options can be used concurrently if required.
Mail is stored on mailboxes on our server. As a general rule you should setup one mailbox per person. All hosting accounts allow for multiple mailboxes. By using mail aliases you can direct muliple email addresses to a single mailbox.
POP3
Supported by all popular mail clients, POP3 allows you to download mail from our mail server to your local machine. Illustrated guides for configuring popular email clients are provided here.
Webmail
A webmail client is availalble requiring only a web browser to colllect your email.
https://anchor.net.au/webmail/
Webmail is useful if you are travelling/roaming or just out of your office, but is generally not suitable as long term option for handling email.Mutt/Pine
Text based email clients running in a terminal are supported. These are accessible via SSH. Text based email clients provide a quick and powerful means of managing email for the Unix power user.
Option 3. Operate an internal mail server
An internal mail server can be operated to handle all mail on your domain. This removes the reliance on our mail servers and provides a number of advantages in office environments.
Advantages of an internal mail server include:
- Internal mail is delivered quicker and does not need to go through your Internet connection.
- Lower data usage costs on your hosting account as mail data does not go via Anchor's servers.
- Increased flexibility in control over mail accounts.
In order to operate an internal mail server you must have a fixed IP address for the machine which runs the mail server. Note many ADSL services do not provide a fixed IP address.
Internal mail servers can be operated using software such as: Sendmail, Postfix, Qmail, Microsft Exchange Server, or a variety of windows based shareware mail servers.
Outbound Mail
Mail sent from your machine must always be sent via a mail server which is connected directly to the network to which you use for Internet access. This means you need to use the mail server provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). These measures are required to prevent abuse of the service by spammers. If your ISP doesn't provide access to a mail server AND you are connected with a fixed IP address you will be able to use our mail server on request.
How does email spam and virus protection work?
Anchor provides a combined spam and virus protection service. Detailed information on how the service works is available here
Why outgoing mail cannot be sent via Anchor
In order to download email, you are always required to enter a password. But to send mail you do not need a password.
So if we were to allow you to send mail via our servers, we would also be allowing anyone else on the Internet to send mail that looked like it was sent from you. This poses an obvious security problem.
When you dial up to your Internet service provider, you must enter a passsword to connect. This means your ISP knows that only authorised users (those that have the password for your account) are logged into their network. This in turns means that they can let you send mail via their servers and still maintain a secure system.
Spammers use un-secure mail servers to send out junk mail. By restricting access to the mail servers, we are doing our part to prevent spam. Further to this the service providers that provide the connection to the Internet backbone require that the mail servers be prevented from allowing un-authorised emails being sent out.
Most hosting companies implement the same policy in regards to outgoing mail.
Please note: If your ISP does not provide access to a mail server and you are connected via a fixed IP address, you can use our mail servers on request.
