Setting up hMailServer

The free email server for Windows, hMailServer could be a better choice for enterprise as it gives you an edge over others by providing features such as effective SPAM and virus protection, shared calenders and contacts, and seamless integration with a wide variety of mail clients. hMailServer is a full-featured Windows based mail server which works on SMTP, POP3 and IMAP for performing its outbound and incoming mail services.

The security part is enhanced by usage of SSL certificates, IP security and integrated server diagnostics. Its feature-set consist of multiple domains, auto-reply and forwarding options, Active Directory support, distribution lists, built-in backup, etc. You can integrate hMailServer with Microsoft SQL Server, or you can make use of an external Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL or MySQL database for the same.

Installation is not a painful job. Just do it by the regular installation procedure. After installing hMailServer, make sure you configure your DNS server correctly. For SMTP to work, you must define Mail eXchanger records for your domain. Simply put the Mail eXchanger records; tell other email servers what server in your domain is responsible for handling mail.

Configuration is something you need to watch-out for proper functioning of mail server. It consist of a series of steps:

Start hMailServer Administrator, double-click on the “localhost” host name to connect to the hMailServer instance running on localhost. Put in the main hMailServer administration password, and then click OK Domains & Accounts. hMailServer needs to be connected to an Internet domain. Add cybermedia.co.in as a domain in hMailAdmin. Start hMailAdmin, click Add domain, enter cybermedia.co.in as domain name and save. Now, if you want to add accounts to your server, just click on the 'Accounts' tab under 'pcqlabs.com'. Add the account address, set the password and click Save. Specify Public Host name & SMTP Relayer. For the proper working of mail server, it is necessary for the software to automatically detect the public host name of the computer where it is running.

So, you need to specify the public host name. Configuration steps are as follows: Start hMailAdmin. In the tree to the left, go to Settings -> Protocols -> SMTP. To the right, the SMTP settings are shown. Click on the Delivery of e-mail tab. Under host name, enter the public hostname of the computer where hMailServer is running. In the SMTP Relayer field, enter the host name of your ISP's email server, along with your credentials on that server in case it demands authentication. Save the change. With these basic settings, you would be able to use hMailServer. You can also add some more settings according to your needs. We found it very useful..