Typical Configuration Examples

To help you through the various settings being relevant for inbound mail routing, please determine which example applies to your case, and follow the instructions. If you have more than one POP3 account, a different example may apply for each one.

Example 1: every user has his own POP3 mailbox.
Example 2: you have a single POP3 account, which gets mail for several SMTP addresses (for ex.: name1@domain.com, name2@domain.com, etc.), or a "catch-all" mailbox.
Example 3: you have a single POP3 account, which gets mail for only one SMTP address (for ex.: Your.Name@isp.net), and several users want to use this POP3 account.

Try message routing

Please note that especially for examples 2 and 3, you may find it useful to use the Try message routing tool (button on the property page of a POP3 Account.

Copy the message header text of a "real" message, and paste it into the tool window. The Check button will reveal how this message would be routed with the current configuration. Note: in Microsoft Outlook, you can get the Internet message headers of a message through the Options dialog, while the message is open.

Top of page

Example 1: Every user has his own POP3 mailbox

Administration program for your mail server	SMTP address for each user	Enter the SMTP address of his/her POP3 account.
The PYTHEAS MailGate Control Panel / Configuration Program	Accounts tab	Create the POP3 account entries
	POP3 account properties	Address validation	empty
		In the Search for routing criteria... frame
		...only in this header	<none>
		... in the human readable part	uncheck
		...in the message subject	uncheck
	Recipients tab	Create the Recipient entries
	Recipient properties	Select his/her POP3 account
		Routing criteria	check: route all mail...

If you have several users who should receive all mail from a certain POP3 Account, configure a Recipient for each of them and connect it to this POP3 Account.

Top of page

Example 2: You have a single POP3 account, which gets mail for several SMTP addresses (for ex.: name1@domain.com, name2@domain.com, etc.)

Catch-all POP3 mailboxes fall into this category. Messages will be routed automatically to the Recipients they are addressed to.

Administration program for your mail server	SMTP address for each user	Enter the user's SMTP address (for ex.: name1@domain.com)
The PYTHEAS MailGate Control Panel / Configuration Program	Accounts tab	Create the POP3 account entry
	POP3 account properties	Address validation	empty or uncheck the option below and use: `@domain.com`
		Append SMTP addresses from Recipient definitions	check
		In the Search for routing criteria... frame
		...only in this header	Select <None> (1)
		... in the human readable part	uncheck
		...in the message subject	uncheck
	Recipients tab	Create a Recipient entry for each user, using the public SMTP address.
	Recipient properties	Select the POP3 account
		Routing criteria	uncheck: Route all mail... in keywords field: name part of the SMTP address (in our example this would be: `name1` resp. `name2` etc.)
		Send undeliverable messages to this Recipient	check for at least one Recipient

Note (1): If the mail server at your ISP writes a header line containing the address a message was addressed to (the SMTP address used in the RCPT TO part of the SMTP dialog), we recommend to use the prefix (header name) of this line (we included "Delivered-To", "X-Envelope-To" in the list, but other values can be entered, too). More...

Top of page

Example 3: You have a single POP3 account, which gets mail for only one SMTP address (for ex.: Your.Name@isp.net), and several users want to use this POP3 account

Administration program for your mail server	SMTP address for each user	Compose the SMTP addresses in the following way: Your.Name__User1@isp.net, Your.Name__User2@isp.net, etc. (2)
The PYTHEAS MailGate Control Panel / Configuration Program	Outgoing mail tab	Take care of outgoing mail	check
	Outgoing mail tab	Use Make-Unique-Address tag	check, and use the value __ (3)
	Accounts tab	Create the POP3 account entry
	POP3 account properties	Address validation	leave blank
		Append SMTP addresses from Recipient definitions	check
		In the Search for routing criteria... frame
		...only in this header	<None>
		... in the human readable part	check, if you wand to do mail routing in behalf of this information
		...in the message subject	check, if you wand to do mail routing in behalf of this information
	Recipients tab	Create the Recipient entries
	Recipient properties	(local) SMTP addresses	Your.Name__User1@isp.net, Your.Name__User2@isp.net, etc.
		Select the POP3 account which receives email addressed to Your.Name@isp.net
		Routing criteria	either check: Route all mail...
		Other SMTP addresses	Your.Name@isp.net
Note (2)	Do not use more than 10 characters between __ (2 underscores) and @. You should be more creative than ourselves, when choosing the tags to distinguish the users (User1, User2 etc.).
Note (3)	Two underscores. If - for some reason - you don't want to use this value, change this tag. You will have to change all the SMTP addresses created according to this model. By the way, in previous versions of our product, the default value for this tag had been ##, but unfortunately, it appears that Microsoft Exchange Outlook Web Access has problems accessing a mailbox whose SMTP address includes a # character.