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KB07011901 Creating a stand-alone archive

Important
The information in this KB article has generally been superceded by the introduction of the Archive Passthrough facility in Inbox Properties.

Most users should now follow that configuration.

 


This KB article is retained to assist users with existing configurations based on its advice.

 

KB07011901 Creating a stand-alone archive

The construction of a mail archive is easiest explained by way of an example; it is then a simple matter to extrapolate from this example to your own circumstances. Here we show how Mailtraq is installed in an existing mail-flow to provide an archive and recovery system .

Creating a Single Archive

In this example mail arrives for the organization called yourdomain.com by SMTP, via a router/firewall set to forward traffic on Port 25 to the mailserver. The mailserver is installed on the LAN with an IP address of 192.168.1.10 The archive-server is in 192.168.1.5  In this case, both the mailserver and the archive server are Mailtraq installations. It is not essential for the mailserver to be a Mailtraq, however there are some configuration advantages if it is. We will call the primary mail server – 'mailserver' and the Mailtraq used as an archive – 'archive-server'.

Setting up the main inbound mail route.

The port forwarding on the router is set to send port 25 (SMTP) traffic to the archive-server on 192.168.1.5

  1. The archive-server is configured with Options | Server  - Domain name set to yourdomain.com
  2. A User and Mailbox called <messages> is created
  3. Options | Incoming Mail | Options is set to
    [x] Forward a copy of all incoming mail to <messages>
  4. Options | Incoming Mail | Undelivered Mail is set to
    [x] Forward Undelivered Mail to Outbox
  5. In Options | Outgoing Mail the Custom Routing Table is used to create a Static Route to send all mail for yourdomain.com to the Mail Host on 192.168.1.10
  6. If you are handling mail for multiple domains then a Static Route must be created for each domain or domain alias.

Now all messages arriving for yourdomain.com will be copied to <messages> and will be sent on to the mailserver.

Setting up the main outbound mail route

The 'mailserver' is set to send all outgoing mail to the Smart Host on the archive-server 192.168.1.5

In the archive-server in Options | Outgoing Mail the Custom Routing Table is used to create a second Static Route, below the first one, to send all mail for '*' either direct to its destination using MX Host Lookups or to your ISP's smarthost for onward delivery.

When the outbound message arrives at the archive-server it is evaluated to see if it is locally deliverable (which it is not) and so placed in the Outbox. The Custom Routing Table evaluates the message for delivery to a local domain, and finding that it is not, sends it to its final destination.

These messages that are outbound-from the 'mailserver' are seen as inbound messages by the archive-server.
The archive-server will place a copy of the message in <messages>.


Configuring the archive

A copy of all messages inbound-to and outbound-from yourdomain.com will be stored in the mailbox called <messages>.

  • The Archive settings for this mailbox should be set to expire the messages to the System Archive after a short period.
  • The System Mail Archive should be set to reflect the message retention policy of your organization.
  • The archive can be searched as described in Archiving.
  • A back-up regime should be created.
Optional additional configuration

Capturing intra-organization messages.

Under normal circumstances messages handled by the 'mailserver' will be delivered locally, and so will not reach the archive-server. In order to force local messages via the archive-server it is necessary to modify the way the SMTP service is configured on the 'mailserver' and make a change to the static route in the archive-server described above.

The following describes how to make this change in Mailtraq. If you are using a different program for your mail server you will need to make analogous changes.

In the 'mailserver'

    • Open the Service Manager:
      Change the SMTP service port from listening on Port 25 to listen on Port 2525
    • Add a TCP/IP Proxy Tunnel to listen on Port 25, with the Proxy-tab set, in this example network to: Remote Server [192.168.1.5] Port [25]

This means that email clients communicating with the 'mailserver' will have their outbound messages (even local messages) passed forward to the archive-server. These messages will be evaluated to see if they are locally deliverable (they are not) and so placed in the Outbox. In the Outbox their domain name will match that of the static route and so they will be forwarded to the 'mailserver' and placed in the recipients mailbox for collection by the user.

Remote users' email clients will need to be configured with their SMTP mail server as, in this example: mail.mydomain.com:2525 , and a route will need to be opened from your corporate firewall to the mailserver.

In the archive-server

Change the static route described above to create a Static Route to send all mail for yourdomain.com to the Mail Host on 192.168.1.10:2525

If you are handling mail for multiple domains then the Static Route must be changed for each domain or domain alias.

The above archive configurations create a searchable archive of all inbound and outbound messages. In some situations it may be necessary to create a browsable archive, so that compliance offices can use webmail to browse the email correspondence on a user by user basis.

Browsable archive – outbound only

The most common requirement is to be able to easily see the outbound email correspondence of your users; Mailtraq makes this very easy to do.

In the archive-server, in addition to the above configuration.

    • In Options | Incoming Mail | Archive Passthrough
    • [x] Copy all mail to sender's Sent Items folder
    • Mailtraq will make the mailboxes on the 'archive-server' for you automatically if you enable
      [x] Create Mailbox if necessary

Compliance officers can then simply browse to, in this example, http://192.168.1.5 and with the appropriate username and password access the mailbox. For additional security webmail access can be limited to the LAN, and/or Secure HTTPS webmail access can be used.

System administrators should restrict the amount of mail held in the browsable mailbox to a sensible level by use of the Mailbox Archive-tab settings. The primary archive should be held in the System Mail Archive


Browsable archive – inbound and outbound

In the 'archive-server', in addition to the above configuration

    • In addition to the <messages> User and Mailbox ,an additional User and Mailbox is created called <copy-mail>
      Options | Incoming Mail | Options is changed to
    • [x] Forward a copy of all incoming mail to <copy-mail>
    • The Alias of 'copy-mail' is added to <messages>
    • A User and Mailbox is created for each of the Users on the 'mailserver'
    • Options | Incoming Mail | Undelivered Mail is changed to
      [x] Return Undelivered Mail to Sender.

The 'archive-server' will now have a copy of every message sent to each user and each message sent by them.

In the 'mailserver'

Create a Remote POP3 Mailbox collector to collect the mail from <copy-mail> on 192.168.1.5 and route the messages to your local users. Set the Remote POP3 to collect every 3 minutes (the minimum) and do not leave a copy on the server.

 

 


Keywords: kb archives
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