Email Hosting README

If TZO already manages DNS for your domain, the order and configure process will automatically configure your MX record to point to the correct email hosting server. If you purchased Email Hosting for use with a domain which uses third-party (not TZO) nameservers, then you will need to edit your domain's DNS, setting your MX record to mailhost.tzo.com.

After Email Hosting is created, you must logon as the domain admin (postmaster) and create each mailbox address for your domain. Note that these addresses are also sub-accounts on the email hosting management interface, so they can manage their own settings such as Vacation replies. Admin-level accounts can manage all email accounts.

Email contents are analyzed by SpamAssassin and assigned a spam score based on the contents and structure of the email. The TZO email defaults lean towards the side of less blocking and tagging. You can safely configure the anti-spam settings to be stronger at detecting spam. If you change the spam-detection defaults by not more than 1 point in either direction, and allow time for you to verify the new scoring rules. Feel free to experiment - the TZO email interface will not allow you to specify an unsafe mail filtering rule. There are two spam score thresholds: Tag, and Refuse.

The Spam Tagging threshold is the score at which you want email to still be delivered, but you want it subject tagged. The subject tagging can then be used as a method of sorting or managing your email.

The Spam Refuse threshold is the score at which email is not delivered, but instead is discarded. This is a configurable option and you can set this filtering level to be strong or weak as you may prefer.

For inbound email, a DNS-BL (spam blacklist) check is performed to verify the remote sender IP is not a server known to be a spam relay. If the sender IP is is found on spam blacklists used by TZO, the message will be rejected (blocked) with a SMTP 550 code, and the text of the rejection includes a clickable link to look up their IP reputation at the blacklist. The DNS-BL checks used are SpamCop and Spamhaus Zen, both reliable lists for tracking servers which are major sources of spam.

DNS-BL testing occurs at the start of SMTP, and are not affected by any content-level preferences such as "Whitelist From".

All email content is scanned and given a spam score. All email content is scanned and given a spam score by the system. You may whitelist important senders by their From address or domain, which will exempt them from the anti-spam scanning (technically, there will be email headers indicating the message was scanned, but nothing will be done with the spam score on whitelisted traffic).

Email which is not spam ('good' email) will have a very low spam score, and so it will not be blocked and it will not have the word 'spam' put in the subject.

Email which is not spam ('good' email) will have a very low spam score, and so it will not be blocked and it will not have the word 'spam' put in the subject.

If senders of mail to you are having their subjects tagged as 'spam', you can adjust this in the Email Panel interface. The easy configuration setting is to raise your mailbox 'Spam Tagging' score by 1 point (less tagging). Alternatively in the Email Panel, you may explicitly list email addresses which should never be subject to content-filtering checks.

It is not normally necessary for you to whitelist sender addresses; the option is simply available if you choose. Whitelisting is most useful when used for sender addresses which send you automated or bulk email (machine generated emails which are not spam to you). For example, you might whitelist discussion group lists, newsletters, or surveys you expect to receive. You may enter the whitelist in the form of 'someone@example.com', or 'example.com'. Be careful about whitelisting entire domains as you invite too much spam into your inbox.

After the anti-spam scanner scores email, it uses your email preferences to route the email. Any email scoring LESS than the "Spam Tagging" threshold will be considered white or good email, and routed as-is into to your Inbox. Any email scoring ABOVE your Spam Refuse is considered black or spam email, and will be black-holed (deleted).

This leaves a gray area for email, content which may or may not be spam, but there is enough uncertainty to not delete the email. Yet there should probably be some special handling, so that caution is taken when opening the email. Emails scoring above the Spam Tag score (but below Spam Refuse) will be tagged for handling. A common method for handling such mail is to move it (via a rule in your email client) into a special folder for daily review (just in case a valid email scored high enough to be tagged).

Spam Tagging is optional, and may be set to None. If you find that certain associates are routinely tagged as spam (but your Spam Tag seems OK for all your other email) you could eliminate tagging on that specific sender or domain by using the Whitelist controls.

SMTP Hosting is not included with POP3 hosting. To send messages from your email client, please configure your Outgoing SMTP server to that of your Internet provider's SMTP server. If you are mobile, you may also send email using the TZO webmail interface.

If you have a network which can not send email through your ISP's SMTP server, another option for sending email is the TZO Outbound Mail Relay service.

The maximum mailbox size is 100MB. Please note, if the mailbox becomes full, no further email can be accepted until this condition is resolved.

Users who retrieve their email using POP3 protocol do not normally need to manage their email account space - the email client will manage this for you. POP3 protocol is the default account option in Outlook, Thunderbird or Apple Mail.

You can view your email using the IMAP or Webmail protocols, allowing convenient access for mobile platforms such as the Apple iPhone or Android-based phones. Please note that Webmail or IMAP will not automatically manage your mailbox space, so you must take care to delete old email and empty the Trash folder.

POP3 email access will manage space for you automatically (downloading everything off of the TZO server)