This Article Includes: Managing Your Email User Accounts, Email Aliases and Forwards, Spam Filtering, Blacklist and Whitelist, Setting a Catch-All, Account Filters, User Filters, and Auto Responders. Scroll Down to the Blue Heading you Need Assistance with.
The First Step is to log in to your cPanel Control Panel. You should be able to log in at: http://www.Your_Domain.com:2083 (where Your_Domain.com is your actual Domain).
NOTE: All actions described in this Article will be Done from the “Mail” Section of your cPanel Control Panel. Each Section of the Control Panel will provide a “Video Tutorial” Button (top/left) and/or a “Help” Option (top/right)
Add a New Email User Account:
#1. After Logging Into your Control Panel, Click on the “Email Accounts” Icon.
NOTE: The top portion of the Page provides options to add a new User Account. The Bottom Portions will list the Email User Accounts you already have set up on the server.
#2. In the Email Field Add the User Name You wish to set up as an Email Account. Example: If you wish to set up an email address as meme@Your_Domain.com:2082 (where Your_Domain.com is your actual Domain). Then in the Email Field Type: tom
#3. From the Drop Down Menu (to the right of the Email Field) select the Domain you are setting the email up for (applicable only if you have add-on domains or sub-domains).
#4. Enter an acceptable Password in the Password Field.
#5. Enter your Password again in the Password (again) Field.
#6. Enter a “Mailbox Quota” or Check the “Unlimited” option. NOTE: This is the amount of disk space allocatted to this paticular email user to store emails on the server. This quota is taken from your Gross account quota.
#7. Click the “Create Account” Button.
You can Now either Create another Email Account or return to the Main Page by Clicking the Small “Home” Icon in the Very Top Left Corner of the Page.
Manage Email User Accounts (Includes Deleting, Change Quota, Change Password):
#1. After Logging Into your Control Panel, Click on the “Email Accounts” Icon.
NOTE: The top portion of the Page provides options to add a new User Account. The Bottom Portions will list the Email User Accounts you already have set up on the server.
#2. To the Right side of each Email User Account you will see options to Change the Password, Change the Quota, Delete the Account, and the “More” Drop Down. Click on the Option for the Task you wish to complete.
“More” Drop Down Option.. By Clicking on the Little Arrow you may optionally log into Webmail for the paticular User or Attempt to Configure your Email Client (desktop computer, laptop, etc). You will find Instructions on this Page.
To Return to the Main Page of cPanel Click the Small “Home” Icon in the Very Top Left Corner of the Page.
Email Forwards and Aliases: On cPanel Servers Email Aliases are referred to as “Forwarders”.
An email account forwarder allows a copy of any email sent to one email address to be forwarded to another email address. This lets you use one account to check mail sent to several email addresses.
#1. After Logging Into your Control Panel, Click on the “Forwarders” Icon.
NOTE: Please read the Explanation of this Page Under the “Email Account Forwarders” Heading before Proceeding. You may also optionally watch a Help Video For using this section by clicking on the “Video Tutorial” Button (top/Left)
#2. The Top section of the Page will Show any Exsisting Forwards you have setup. NOTE: Forwards can NOT be Edited. They can only be deleted. If you have an error in a Email Forward, simply delete it and then set it up again.
To Add a New Email Forwarder Click on the “Add Forwarder” Button Located directly under your exsisting Forwards.
#3. In the “Address to Forward:” Field Add the User Name You wish to set up as an Email Forward. Example: If you wish to set up an email forward as tom@Your_Domain.com:2083 (where Your_Domain.com is your actual Domain). Then in the Email Field Type: tom
#4. From the Drop Down Menu (to the right of the Email Field) select the Domain you are setting the email up for (applicable only if you have add-on domains or sub-domains).
#5. Destination: In the “Forward to email address:” Field Type in the Full email address you wish to forward the email to.
NOTE: You may optional select “Discard with error to sender (at SMTP time)” This means that any emails sent to this email address will bounce back to the sender with the message you specify in the “Failure Message (seen by sender):” Field.
#6. Click the “Add Forwarder” Button. Click the “Go Back” Button to return to the Forwarders Section or to Return to your cPanel Main Page Click the little “Home” Icon (top/left corner of Page).
– Forward ALL Emails to Your Domain – You may optionally Forward all emails sent to your domain (anything@Your_Domain.com) by Clicking on the “Add Domain Forwarder” at the Bottom of the Forwarders Page.
Managing a Email Catch-All:
WARNING !!! Catch-alls are an invitation to spammers. We HIGHLY Recomend that you set your Catchall to “Discard with error to sender (at SMTP time)” as this will bounce back all emails sent to your domain with out a proper email address. NOTE: People who are emailing you for legitimate reasons do not just randomly pick an email address.
#1. After Logging Into your Control Panel, Click on the “Default Address” Icon.
NOTE: Please read the Explanation of this Page Under the “Set Default Address” Heading before Proceeding.
#2. From the “Send all unrouted email for:” Drop Down Menu select the Domain you are setting the Catch-All up for (applicable only if you have add-on domains or sub-domains).
#3. Choose what to do with Unrouted Emails. To Bounce Back any mail that is sent to an invalid email address for your domain Select the “Discard with error to sender (at SMTP time)”. To send all default mail to the main mail account, Select: “Forward to email address” type the username of your cPanel account into the “Forward to email address” field, OR to forward the email to another email address type in the Email Address you wish to Forward the email to.
WARNING !!! Forwarding Catch-All Email to a ISP Email Address or to any Free Email Account (Aol, Comcast, Earthlink, Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, etc) will most likely eventually result in your emails being blocked.
Managing Auto-Responders:
You can use auto responders to send a message back automatically to anyone who sends an email to a specified account. This can be useful for times when you are on vacation or unavailable, or if you have a generic message that you wish to send from a support email address, or Info address, etc.
After Logging Into your Control Panel, Click on the “Auto Responders” Icon. This Page will List any Current Auto-Responders you Have setup.
To add or edit an auto responder:
#1. Click Add Autoresponder to create a new auto responder. Or, find a current auto responder and click Edit.
#2. Choose a character set.
#3. Specify the interval, in hours, you wish for the autoresponder to wait between responses to the same email address.
For example, if you set up an autoresponder with an interval of 24, and you receive an email from [email protected] at 8 am on Monday, the autoresponder will respond to his message immediately. If, however, [email protected] continues to email you throughout the day, the autoresponder will not send him another response for 24 hours after his initial email (in this case, 8 am Tuesday). If he emails you again after the 24-hour interval expires, he will receive an auto-response immediately.
* note Note: If the interval is set to 0, cPanel sends an auto-response to each email.
#4. Define the email address whose mail you wish the system to respond to.
#5. In the From and Subject fields, type the username and subject you want to appear in the response.
#6. If the message includes HTML tags, click the HTML checkbox.
#7. In the Body field, type the text of the response. In the message body, you can include tags, enclosed in percent signs . You can use these tags to insert information, such as the incoming email’s sender or subject, into the body of the email. Available tags are:
The subject of the message that was sent to the autoresponder.
The name of the sender of the message received by the autoresponder, if available. (If the sender’s name was not received, %from% will print the sender’s email address.)
* %email% €” The sender’s email address.
#8. Select a start time. You can choose Immediately or Custom.
* If you select Custom, a small calendar will pop up. Navigate between months using the arrows and click your preferred date. Then, enter a time at the bottom of the calendar and select AM or PM from the the drop-down menu. Finally, click X to exit out of the calendar.
#9. Select a stop time. You can choose Never or Custom.
* If you select Custom, a small calendar will pop up. Navigate between months using the arrows and click your preferred date. Then, enter a time at the bottom of the calendar and select AM or PM from the the drop-down menu. Finally, click X to exit out of the calendar.
* note Note: You must choose a stop time that is later than the start time.
#10. Click Create/Modify to store the new auto responder.
Managing Spam Filtering:
Your cPanel Server uses the Popular “Spam Assassin” Spam Filtering Software.
SpamAssassin is an email utility that attempts to filter spam by examining incoming email and testing for spam characteristics. It uses Bayesian spam filtering and network testing to screen incoming email. This results in an overall score. If an incoming message reaches a predefined score, the message is discarded.
After Logging Into your Control Panel, Click on the “Spam Assassin” Icon. From This Section you can Manage all aspects of the Spam Filtering options, Including White Listing and Blacklisting.
Enable SpamAssassin
To enable SpamAssassin:
* Click the Enable SpamAssassin button on the SpamAssassin home screen.
Note: It is possible to disable SpamAssassin by returning to the SpamAssassin page and clicking Disable SpamAssassin.
Automatically Delete Spam
This function automatically deletes messages that meet or exceed the score limit. Activate this function by clicking the Auto-Delete Spam button under the Filters heading.
Click the Disable Auto-Delete Spam button to disable this feature.
Note: Enabling this feature could cause you to lose email that is not spamming if a message meets or exceeds the defined score. Make sure SpamAssassin is configured properly for your account before using this feature.
Enable the Spam Box
Enabling the spam box will create an additional folder, named spam, where spam mail will be sent. This can be useful in preserving mail that may have mistakenly been filtered by SpamAssassin. It is recommended that you enable this feature.
This feature also comes with a Clear Spam Box function that will delete the messages in the spam box.
It is possible to disable the spam box by returning to the SpamAssassin page and clicking Disable Spam Box.
ALERT! Warning: If you check your mail via a POP3 client, you must access and empty your spam box using the username [email protected]/spam and your email account password. Otherwise, spam may accumulate in the spam box and cause you to reach your email account quota.
* Only the spam box may be accessed using the above address format; no other folders on your account are accessible in this way.
* While this is not an issue for IMAP and webmail users, all users should periodically check and delete the contents of the spam box.
* If you are unsure whether you use POP3 or IMAP to receive mail, you may be able to find this information on your email application’s Preferences screen.
Configure SpamAssassin
When you click Configure SpamAssassin, you can add email addresses that should be filtered automatically by typing the address into the blacklist_from box. A whitelist can be created in the same way at the bottom of the page. It is also possible to specify scores that SpamAssassin should use for each particular test.
Set Required Spam Score
SpamAssassin examines every email message for spam characteristics, then assigns it an overall score. Enter the score required for a message to be considered spam.
5.0 is the default setting, and is aggressive. It would be suitable for a single user, but an ISP should set the default to be more lenient (8.0 or 10.0).
Add Addresses to the Blacklist:
Enter addresses whose email is often allowed past the spam filter, but from whom you do not wish to receive email.
You may use * as a wildcard for multiple characters, or ? as a single-character wildcard.
* [email protected] €” Blacklists a single email address.
* *@example.com €” Blacklists all the addresses at example.com.
* [email protected] €” For example, [email protected] would be blacklisted, but [email protected] would not be blacklisted.
By default, 5 text boxes appear, allowing you to add 5 addresses. To add more than 5 addresses:
1. Fill in the first 5 text boxes.
2. Click Save.
When you return to the page, more text boxes will appear.
Add Addresses to the Whitelist:
Enter addresses whose email is often blocked, but from whom you wish to receive email.
You may use * as a wildcard for multiple characters, or ? as a single-character wildcard.
* [email protected] €” Whitelists a single email address.
* *@example.com €” Whitelists all the email addresses at example.com.
* [email protected] €” For example, [email protected] would be added to the whitelist while [email protected] would not be added.
By default, 5 text boxes appear, allowing you to add 5 addresses. To add more than 5 addresses:
1. Fill in the first 5 text boxes.
2. Click Save.
When you return to the page, more textboxes will appear.
PICK Remember:
* Click Save to store the configuration changes.
* A whitelisted address is automatically allowed past the filter.
* A blacklisted address will automatically be filtered by SpamAssassin.
* More details about configuring SpamAssassin can be found at http://spamassassin.apache.org/.
Account Level Filters:
Best Practices
We strongly recommend using multiple, simple filters instead of a single, monolithic filter. Exim, your server’s mail transfer agent, handles many small rules much more efficiently than it handles a single large rule.
Exim has an implicit limit on how large an error message can be. Excessively large filters can exceed that limit whenever an error is encountered, making debugging impossible.
Add an Account Level Filter
It is important to give the filter an appropriate name, as it will make the task of managing existing filters easier in the future.
To create a new filter:
#1. Click Create a new Filter.
#2. Type a name for the filter in the Filter Name box.
#3. Select a message characteristic from the first pull-down menu.
#4. Select an operator from the next pull-down menu.
#5. Enter the characters or words you wish to use as a filter.
Note: This field will accept regular expressions (when you select the matches regex operator), rather than more commonly used wildcard characters (such as * or ?).
#6. You can add and subtract rules by clicking the + and – buttons.
#7. Select an action from the pull-down menu under the Actions heading. You can add and subtract actions by clicking the + and – buttons.
#8. Click Activate to initialize the filter.
User Level Filters:
Best Practices
We strongly recommend using multiple, simple filters instead of a single, monolithic filter. Exim, your server’s mail transfer agent, handles many small rules much more efficiently than it handles a single large rule.
Exim has an implicit limit on how large an error message can be. Excessively large filters can exceed that limit whenever an error is encountered, making debugging impossible.
Add a User Level Filter
It is important to give the filter an appropriate name, as it will make the task of managing existing filters easier in the future.
To create a new filter:
#1. Click Create a new Filter.
#2. Type a name for the filter in the Filter Name box.
#3. Select a message characteristic (from, subject, to, etc.) from the first pull-down menu.
#4. Select an operator (equals, contains, etc.) from the next pull-down menu.
#5. Enter the characters or words you wish to use as a filter.
* note Note: This field will accept regular expressions (when you select the matches regex operator), rather than more commonly used wildcard characters (such as * or ?).
#6. You can add and subtract rules by clicking the + and – buttons.
#7. Select an action from the pull-down menu under the Actions heading. You can add and subtract actions by clicking the + and – buttons.
#8. Click Activate to initialize the filter.
cPanel offers a comprehensive list of options available to configure your filter.
PICK A word about operators: When you create a filter using several operators, it may be useful to note that cPanel will always process the “and” operator before the “or” operator. As a result, email filters will be processed as follows:
* A or B and C will be processed as A or (B and C).
* A and B or C will be processed as (A and B) or C.
If you wish to create a filter such as (A or B) and (C or D), you would have to create it like so:
* (A and C) or (A and D) or (B and C) or (B and D).
Test a Custom Filter
Once a filter has been created, it can be tested.
To test your filter:
#1. Type a test email message in the text box below the Filter Test heading.
* Be sure to include the characters or words that you have set your filter to catch.
#2. Click Test Filter. When the test is run, the next screen should display a the results.
This screen summarizes the actions taken by the filter. It is important to read over the data to ensure that the filter produces the desired result.
To edit an existing filter:
#1. Click Edit next to the appropriate filter name.
#2. You can adjust any of the fields displayed the message characteristic, operator, term to filter, or resulting action.
#3. Click Activate to initialize the filter.
