In order to send email through Avvanta's network while connected to another ISP or while using our roaming dial-up numbers you must configure your email program to authenticate to the mail server before sending. You should also enable SSL when using SMTP Authentication to encrypt your password.

• Use mail.avvanta.com as your SMTP server name. The old mail.blarg.net server name still works, but the SSL certificate is specific to mail.avvanta.com and your mail program will complain if you use the old name with the new certificate.
• To configure Outlook or Outlook Express to authenticate, click on Tools, then Accounts. From the Accounts window, click on the Mail tab. Click one time on the mail.avvanta.com account entry and then click on the Properties button. Click on the Servers tab and check the checkbox labeled "My server requires authentication". Click on the Advanced tab. Change the Outgoing (SMTP) port to 465 and check the box that says This server requires a secure connection (SSL). Click OK. Close the Accounts window by clicking on the Close button. Each time you send out mail now, Outlook will securely log in to our mail server and allow you to send mail out.
• To configure Mac Mail, in the Mail program click on Mail and choose Preferences. Under the Accounts tab choose your mail profile and click Edit. Under the Outgoing Server Field click the Server Settings (or Options) button. Make sure the Authentication field is set to Password and enter your username and password in the provided fields. Check the box next to Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Make sure the port number is set to 465 if using SSL, and set to 25 if not using SSL.
• To configure Mozilla Thunderbird, click on Tools and choose Account Settings followed by Outgoing Server (SMTP). Select the Avvanta mail server and click the Edit button. Check the box next to the User name and Password option. Enter your username. Select the SSL option for Security and click OK. Thunderbird will prompt for the password the first time you try to send email. Note: If a port number is requested or shown make sure the port number shows 465 after selecting the SSL option.
• It is strongly recommended that SSL be used in conjunction with SMTP Authentication.
• If your mail program is not listed here or if the version differs greatly from our instructions please call our office for assistance.

This is identical to the 550 Relaying Denied error message, only this time the IP address is blocked by the Mail Abuse Prevention System.

In order to send email through Avvanta's network while connected to another ISP you must configure your email program to authenticate to the mail server before sending.

To configure Outlook or Outlook Express to authenticate, click on Tools, then Accounts. From the Accounts window, click on the Mail tab. Click one time on the mail.avvanta.com account entry and then click on the Properties button. Click on the Servers tab and check the checkbox labelled "My server requires authentication" and click on Ok. Close the Accounts window by clicking on the Close button. Each time you send out mail now, Outlook will log in to our mail server and allow you to send mail out.

Please see the SMTP Authentication guide for other mail clients.

It is probably not your account or our mail servers.

The most likely cause of problems like this are misconfigured mail servers on the sender's side or with their ISP or corporate mail server.

As part of Avvanta's Advanced Spam Protection system, we subscribe to several Realtime Blackhole Lists (RBL's). If a message is bounced back to the sender, it will tell them exactly why it bounced. The message will almost always give them a web site they can go to for more information about why their message was rejected.

The most common misconfiguration is what is called an open relay. A mail server that is an open relay will allow any computer on the Internet to send mail through it. This is one of the most common ways that spammers send out their junk email. Once a spammer finds an open relay, they will continue using it to send out as much spam as they can until the relay gets shut down.

Avvanta subscribes to four RBL lists: MAPS RBL+, the Spamhaus XBL, and Avvanta's own S.P.I.K.E. list. These are very reputable lists, and only include mail servers that are proven to be sources of spam. Exact numbers are not known, but it is estimated that between 30-50 percent of the mail servers on the Internet subscribe to one or more spam-stopping lists.

In order to get mail from that person again the administrator of the listed server will need to fix the problem(s) that got them listed. Once the problem is corrected the administrator will need to submit their server for testing and removal from the lists. Fixes for many mail servers can be found from the MAPS Transport Security Initiative pages. Avvanta will not contact the mail server administrator, nor will we provide other administrators assistance in fixing their mail server.

Another useful site to test if a particular mail server is listed is www.samspade.org, specifically the Blackhole test.

Newer installations of Outlook Express, or installations that have installed Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 may encounter the following error when they receive email with attachments:

Outlook Express removed access to the following unsafe attachments in your email: file_name1, file_name2

This is a security feature of Outlook Express. To change the setting to allow you to receive potentially unsafe attachments review the Microsoft Support article at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q329570.

The headers displayed to you in an email (From, To, Subject, etc) are present only for use by humans. With legitimate email these fields normally reflect reality. With spam that is rarely the case. The mail servers deliver mail using the Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) and that protocol specifies where the mail is to be delivered - the "To" header is superfluous. Spammers can put anything they want into the "To" field, which is how you receive messages that apparently were not sent to you.

Another common method is to use the Bcc header, or Blind Carbon Copy, to send the messages. Similar to a normal Cc header, the Blind version strips the recipients email addresses from the address headers, allowing mailing lists to send messages to large lists of addresses without cluttering up the email headers with several hundred separate addresses.

To create additional mailboxes on your account, log into the CCC at avvantamail.com using the primary username/mailbox for your account.

Once logged in, click on the Manage option from the main menu. You can add mailboxes and create email aliases (if you have a domain hosted by us) using the Manage options. Mailboxes and aliases are ready for use immediately after creating them with the CCC.

After creating your additional mailboxes you can then use one of our Email Setup Guides to assist you with configuring your email software. You can also login to the CCC with the new mailbox.

You can also call our office and a representative can assist you with creating additional mailboxes and aliases.

Our mail system allows email messages to be a maximum of 10MB for both sending and receiving. This means that the largest attachment you can send or recieve is about 6MB since encoding the message for email adds about 40% to its size.

If you must send a large file to someone, it is usually more efficient to use your Web Space to make the file available to them and send them a link to download it instead. When using this method to transfer files, keep in mind that they would be publicly available and anyone on the Internet could potentially download it.

One other thing to keep in mind when sending large attachments via email is to make sure that the person you are sending it to can accept it. Many ISP's and email providers have a much smaller maximum message size, usually 1 or 2MB.

Unfortunately there are many worms, viruses, and spammers that can use your email address when they send their email. If those emails generate errors then you receive those error messages - even though you did not send the message. The "From" address of an email is not used by any of the mail servers the email transits unless there's an error so anyone can use any "From" address when they send their email, and there's no means to prevent them from doing so. If you receive a very large number of these notices in a short period you can use the CCC to create Filters to automatically delete the messages when they come in. You would only want to use these filters temporarily as needed—otherwise legitimate error messages you would ordinarily want to receive could be deleted as well.

This can be done through the Communications Control Center in the Preferences section under Mail Forwarding.

Enter the email address that you want to forward your email to in the "Forward Email to?" and select "Forward", then click on "Change". Any new email sent to your Avvanta mailbox will then be forwarded to the address you entered.