NConfig Help Index

NCONFIG

Pegasus Mail and Mercury NDS Mode Configuration Utility

NConfig allows you to configure the way Pegasus Mail and Mercury operate in the Novell NetWare 4.x and 5.x environments using Novell's NDS User Database System. You can use it to perform mailbox maintenance, control program configuration and user settings, and to gather statistics about mail system usage. It is designed to be very easy to use and has an intuitive graphical interface.

First time setup  If you have never previously installed Pegasus Mail in NDS mode on your file server, please click here for step-by-step instructions on the initial setup.

How Pegasus Mail and Mercury operate in NDS mode

NConfig's user interface

Mailbox creation and maintenance

Getting mailbox statistics

"Pruning" mailboxes (mailbox content management)

Configuring Pegasus Mail within NDS contexts

Controlling user addresses and extended settings

NConfig options - controlling the program's operation

Pegasus Mail System, Copyright © 1990-99, David Harris, all rights reserved.


First-time setup of Pegasus Mail in NDS mode

The first time you install Pegasus Mail on your server in NDS mode, you will need to perform a small amount of setup, involving the creation of mailboxes and the installation of special "enabler" DLLs for the program. The exact setup process depends on how you want local mail (mail to other users on your file server) to be handled: each of the links below gives step-by-step instructions on installing Pegasus Mail in different environments.

1: Pegasus Mail delivers directly to other users (no mail server)

In this mode, each user's copy of Pegasus Mail can send messages directly to other users on your server. Each user needs a mailbox, and some extra rights are required for all users in that mailbox directory to allow delivery, but no extra mail server software is needed.

2: The Mercury Mail Transport System handles all local mail delivery

In this mode, you install Pegasus Mail's companion product, Mercury, on your file server and it handles all local mail delivery as well as optionally handling internet mail delivery for your users. Each user needs a mailbox, but no extra grants of rights are needed on the server.

3: The Pegasus Mail Mailserver handles all local mail

In this mode, you install the Pegasus Mail Mailserver product on your file server, and it handles all local mail delivery. The PMM is a specially-modified version of the Mercury Mail Transport System and can also handle Internet mail delivery for your server. When using the PMM, mailboxes are created automatically for users and ongoing mail system administration is reduced to almost nothing.


Pegasus Mail delivers directly to other users

Step 1: Ensure that all users who need e-mail access have an NDS "Home directory" defined, and that the directory exists on the file server. Use the Novell NWADMIN utility to create home directories for your users if they do not have them. Users without home directories will not be able to send or receive mail.

Step 2: Run NConfig, and select the Organization or Organizational unit into which you want to install Pegasus Mail. To create mailboxes for all users in your NDS tree, select the top-level entry in your NDS tree. Click the Make mailbox button, [image], on the NConfig toolbar, to create mailboxes for all users who meet the requirements in step 1 above.

Step 3: If you are using the Win32 version of Pegasus Mail, copy the file W32NW4.DLL from the directory where NConfig is located into the directory where WINPM-32.EXE is installed. If you are using the Win16 version of Pegasus Mail, copy the file WPNNW4.DLL from the directory where NConfig is installed into the directory where WINPMAIL.EXE is installed.

Notes:

Troubleshooting  If, when you run Pegasus Mail, it complains that it can't find your home mailbox location, or presents you with a dialog asking to select between three different standalone operating modes, then there is a problem with your installation. Make sure you are running a genuine Novell workstation requester, such as Client32 or ZENWorks, and that the requester software has been properly installed. Double-check that you copied W??NW4.DLL into the proper directory.

Long directory names  If you are running the Win16 version of Pegasus Mail, or if you are using the Mercury Mail Transport System, then your users home directories on the file server must comply with MS-DOS file name conventions - that is, the directory name must be 8 characters or shorter, and must not contain special characters such as "*" or "/". This limitation does not apply if you are only using the Win32 version of Pegasus Mail.


The Mercury MTS handles all local delivery

Step 1: Ensure that all users who need e-mail access have an NDS "Home directory" defined, and that the directory exists on the file server. Use the Novell NWADMIN utility to create home directories for your users if they do not have them. Users without home directories will not be able to send or receive mail.

Step 2: Run NConfig, and choose Options from the File menu. Make sure that the controls labelled Do not grant trustee [RF] rights to PMXF.INI and Do not add [R] ACL on home directory attribute are checked. Leave the other controls as they are by default then click OK.

Step 3: Edit your MERCURY.INI, which you will find in the SYSTEM directory on your file server. In the [Mercury] Section, add a line like this:

Automaintenance : 1

This tells Mercury to create mailboxes automatically for your users as they are required. If Mercury is currently running on your server, you will need to unload and reload MERCNDS.NLM from your file server's console after taking this step.

Step 4: Run NConfig, and select the Organization or Organizational unit into which you want to install Pegasus Mail. To create settings that apply to all your mail users, select the top-level entry in your NDS tree. Click the Configure Pegasus Mail button, [image], on the NConfig toolbar. Make sure that the Enabled button in the Mercury Interface section is checked, then fill in proper values for the remaining fields in the group (consult the help in that section for more detail). Make sure that the control labelled Use always is checked. Click OK to save the configuration record. Make sure that the spool directory exists, and that users have file create [C] rights there.

Step 5: If you are using the Win32 version of Pegasus Mail, copy the file W32NW4.DLL from the directory where NConfig is located into the directory where WINPM-32.EXE is installed. If you are using the Win16 version of Pegasus Mail, copy the file WPNNW4.DLL from the directory where NConfig is installed into the directory where WINPMAIL.EXE is installed.

Notes:

Troubleshooting  If, when you run Pegasus Mail, it complains that it can't find your home mailbox location, or presents you with a dialog asking to select between three different standalone operating modes, then there is a problem with your installation. Make sure you are running a genuine Novell workstation requester, such as Client32 or ZENWorks, and that the requester software has been properly installed. Double-check that you copied W??NW4.DLL into the proper directory.

Long directory names  Your users home directories on the file server must comply with MS-DOS file name conventions - that is, the directory name must be 8 characters or shorter, and must not contain special characters such as "*" or "/".


The Pegasus Mail Mailserver handles all local delivery

Step 1: Ensure that all users who need e-mail access have an NDS "Home directory" defined, and that the directory exists on the file server. Use the Novell NWADMIN utility to create home directories for your users if they do not have them. Users without home directories will not be able to send or receive mail.

Step 2: Run NConfig, and choose Options from the File menu. Make sure that the control labelled Use Pegasus Mail Mailserver for all local delivery is checked.

Step 3: In NConfig, select the Organization or Organizational unit into which you want to install Pegasus Mail. To create settings that apply to all your mail users, select the top-level entry in your NDS tree. Click the Configure Pegasus Mail button, [image], on the NConfig toolbar. In the field labelled Mailserver spool directory, enter the path to the Pegasus Mail Mailserver's mail submission directory. [Optional] If you are also using the Pegasus Mail Mailserver to handle Internet mail for users on your file server, check the Enabled control in the Mercury Interface section and fill in the fields with proper values. In the Spool directory field, enter the path to the Pegasus Mail Mailserver's mail submission directory. The control labelled Always use in the Mercury Interface section should not be checked.

Step 4: If you are using the Win32 version of Pegasus Mail, copy the file W32NW4.DLL from the directory where NConfig is located into the directory where WINPM-32.EXE is installed. If you are using the Win16 version of Pegasus Mail, copy the file WPNNW4.DLL from the directory where NConfig is installed into the directory where WINPMAIL.EXE is installed.

You do not need to create mailboxes for your users when using the Pegasus Mail Mailserver.

Notes:

Troubleshooting  If, when you run Pegasus Mail, it complains that it can't find your home mailbox location, or presents you with a dialog asking to select between three different standalone operating modes, then there is a problem with your installation. Make sure you are running a genuine Novell workstation requester, such as Client32 or ZENWorks, and that the requester software has been properly installed. Double-check that you copied W??NW4.DLL into the proper directory.

Long directory names  Your users home directories on the file server must comply with MS-DOS file name conventions - that is, the directory name must be 8 characters or shorter, and must not contain special characters such as "*" or "/".


How Pegasus Mail and Mercury operate in NDS mode

Pegasus Mail and Mercury/32 support NetWare systems using plugin modules (the official name for these plugin modules is "NICA" modules, for "Network-Independent Calls Architecture"). Separate plugin modules are available for both Novell NetWare Bindery and NDS modes. It is the plugin's job to handle the following tasks (click on any item to see how the task is performed):

Locate the user's home and new mailbox directories on the server

Locate the directory where mail for any other local user should be placed

Read the Pegasus Mail configuration information at startup

Provide access to lists of local users and groups

Locate the directory where mail should be placed for processing by Mercury

Maintain and report extended feature settings for users


Locating the user's home mailbox directory

By default, a user's home mailbox on the file server is the same as his mail delivery directory (or new mail mailbox). This is a directory called PMAIL located in the user's home directory on the file server. All the user's mail-related files and new mail are stored in this directory, and Mercury and other users create files there when delivering mail.

In order to use Pegasus Mail in NDS mode, a user must have a valid home directory defined under NDS, and must have all rights in that directory. All other users must have the necessary rights to create files in this directory, so that their copies of Pegasus Mail can perform local delivery. The Make mailbox function, represented by the button [image] in the NCONFIG toolbar, will create the PMAIL directory and adjust the rights to it so that all users can deliver mail there.

If you are using Mercury or the Pegasus Mail Mailserver to handle your local mail deliveries, then no extra rights need to be granted in the PMAIL directory, increasing security on your server slightly. You can control the way the Make Mailbox function handles the granting of rights in the user's PMAIL directory in the NConfig Options dialog.

If you are using the Pegasus Mail Mailserver to handle local mail delivery, you do not even need to create mailbox directories for your users - the Mailserver and Pegasus Mail will do this themselves as required.


Locating the directory where mail should be delivered

When sending mail to other local users on the file server, Pegasus Mail usually handles the delivery of mail by itself, placing the mail in the recipient's new mail directory as a file with the extension .CNM. The new mail directory for any given user is a directory called PMAIL located in that user's home directory on the server, and all users must have minimal file create rights in that directory in order to allow delivery of mail. NConfig's Make mailbox function will automatically create the necessary minimum rights to allow local delivery in this way.

As an alternative, you can install the Pegasus Mail Mailserver product on your file server; this set of NLMs, developed by the developer of Pegasus Mail, can handle delivery of mail to all local NetWare users and groups and eliminates the need for extra rights to be granted in users' PMAIL directories. It will also create and maintain users' mailboxes as delivery is required without the need for any intervention from the system administrator, reducing system maintenance to practically nothing. When using the Mailserver, Pegasus Mail writes messages into a queue directory for processing.


Read the Pegasus Mail configuration information at startup

In NDS mode, Pegasus Mail expects to find its configuration information in a Login Script object called Pegasus Mail at the same level as the user in the NDS tree. If it cannot find one, it works its way back up the NDS tree until it either finds a configuration object, or else reaches the root of the tree.

This approach allows considerable flexibility, since it means that you can have separate organizational units within your NDS tree, each with its own specific Pegasus Mail configuration.

NConfig can create and maintain Pegasus Mail configuration for any organizational unit in your tree - simply select the organizational unit you want to configure in the NConfig tree view, then click the Configure Pegasus Mail button, [image].


Provide access to lists of local users and groups

In NDS mode, Pegasus Mail can deliver directly to any valid user in your NDS tree, provided that user has a properly-established mailbox. It can also deliver mail to any NDS group in your tree - it automatically expands the membership of that group, delivering mail to each user who is a member and who has a valid mailbox.

The plugin modules for Pegasus Mail provide lists of all users and groups in your NDS tree to your users via the Pegasus Mail Local User List window on the Addresses menu.

Mail to NDS groups can be controlled by creating an NDS group at the same level as the Pegasus Mail configuration object in the NDS tree. The group can be called GROUPMAIL, in which case only its members will be permitted to send mail to groups, or it can be called NOGROUPMAIL, in which case only those who are *not* members of the group will be permitted to send mail to groups.


Locate the directory where mail should be placed for processing by Mercury

In order to send mail to the Internet via the Mercury Mail Transport system, if you have that installed on your file server, Pegasus Mail needs to know the location of the Mercury spool directory (the directory where messages should be placed for processing by Mercury). This setting is part of the standard Pegasus Mail configuration process, which is accessed by selecting an organizational unit in the NConfig tree view and clicking the Configure Pegasus Mail button, [image]. Your Mercury spool directory should have been created as part of the process of installing Mercury on your system - NConfig will not create it for you, nor will it ensure that all users have the necessary minimum file creation rights necessary to submit mail in that directory.

You can control who can submit mail to Mercury for processing by creating an NDS group called GW_USERS at the same level as the Pegasus Mail configuration object in the NDS tree. If this group exists, only its members will be permitted to send mail via Mercury. If the group does not exist, Pegasus Mail will assume that all users are permitted to submit mail to Mercury.

Note: If you have installed the Pegasus Mail Mailserver, that product uses the same interface as Mercury for processing Internet mail messages, and is configured in the same way.


Maintain and report extended feature settings for users

In NDS mode, certain features of the Pegasus Mail system are regarded as extended capabilities, and need to be enabled on a user by user basis. These features include:

* Autoforwarding of mail sent by other local users

* Autoforwarding of mail arriving from the Internet via Mercury

* Whether or not mail should be delivered as well as forwarded

* Whether or not the user will generate "confirmation of reading" reports

* Whether the user's mailbox is enabled or not

* Whether the user wishes to receive one-line NetWare broadcast messages when new mail arrives.

You can edit these features within NConfig by selecting a user and clicking the User settings and extended features button, [image].

Extended features are stored and maintained in one of two ways:

* If you have allowed NConfig to extend your NDS schema definitions, then the settings are stored as an attribute of each user's NDS object in the NDS tree.

* If you have not allowed NConfig to extend your NDS schema definitions, then they are stored in a file called PMXF.INI in the user's new mail directory. When using this approach, all users need to be able to read each user's PMXF.INI file - NConfig makes this grant of rights automatically when you edit a user's extended features.


NConfig's User Interface

NConfig's main window presents you with three main interface features:

* A tree view, representing your NDS tree

* A toolbar, representing operations you can perform on objects

* A message area, where reports and error messages are displayed.

The tree view:  NConfig presents your NDS tree in a tree view control; all of your Organization, Country, Organizational Unit, Group and User objects can be examined and manipulated in this view. Country, Organization and Organizational Unit objects will be presented with a toggle control, like this: .  Clicking this toggle, or selecting the item and pressing the Right arrow key, will expand the tree view to include any objects within that item. Clicking it again, or pressing the Left arrow key, will contract the view.

Multiple selection:  You can select multiple items in the tree view by holding down the Shift key as you click on them (range selection) or by holding down the Ctrl key (disjoint selection). Many NConfig functions can be applied to multiple objects, and some NConfig options can even be applied to multiple objects of different types.

The button panel:  As you select different objects in the tree view, the buttons in the button panel will change state to reflect the operations you can perform on those objects. The buttons have tooltips that describe their functions: tooltips will appear if you allow the mouse to linger over the button for a moment. The buttons have the following functions:

  Create or maintain the Pegasus Mail mailbox for a user. This option can be applied to any user or selection of users, or to any Organization or Organizational Unit object, in which case all users within and below that object will be affected. You do not need to use this option at all if you have installed the Pegasus Mail Mailserver to handle your local mail delivery - the Mailserver and Pegasus Mail between them will create user mailbox directories only as and when they are required.

  Get statistics for user mailboxes.  This option reports the usage of a mailbox or a selection of mailboxes, describing the number and size of new mail messages and folders. The report generated by this function is placed in the message area, and can be copied from there and pasted into other applications. This function can only be applied to user objects.

  "Prune" mailbox. This function allows you to manage unread mail in the user's mailbox; you can select messages based on several combinations of age and size, and can use this function to delete them, or to move or copy them to another user's mailbox.

  Configure Pegasus Mail. This option allows you to maintain the configuration object for Pegasus Mail at any level within your NDS tree. To use it, select an Organization or Organizational Unit object within your tree and click the button.

  Manage user settings and extended features.  This option allows you to manage optional settings for users, and to edit, enable and disable any automatic reply generated by the Mercury Mail Transport System. This option can only be applied to user objects, and if more than one user object is selected, only a subset of the options in the dialog can be applied to those users.

The Message Area:  The message area is simply a text control where NConfig reports error messages, progress information, and statistics. Many of the NConfig functions report their actions in this area, and it is usually cleared each time you start a new operation.

The message area control is a standard edit control, and its contents can be edited and copied using standard right-click options.


 Mailbox creation and maintenance

In order to run in NDS mode, each Pegasus Mail user needs to have a mailbox set up. The mailbox is where all that user's mail-related files are stored by default (although the user can choose to relocate them to a local drive), and is also the place where new mail is delivered for that user. The user must have all rights in his or her mailbox, and if Pegasus Mail is to handle local mail delivery, all other users must have minimal file create rights in that directory as well.

Note that if you have installed the Pegasus Mail Mailserver product to handle local mail delivery, then you never need to use this option, although doing so will cause no harm. The Mailserver and Pegasus Mail between them will create user mailboxes as and when they are needed.

A user's mailbox is a directory called PMAIL, which is located in the user's home directory on the file server. In order to have a mailbox, the user's NDS Home directory attribute must be defined, the directory to which it refers must exist, and the user must have all rights to that directory. If a user meets these criteria (which are usually a standard part of the process of creating a user), then NConfig can create a mailbox for that user and that user can run Pegasus Mail.

To create or maintain a mailbox for a user, highlight that user in the NConfig tree view and click the Make Mailbox button [image] in the toolbar. You can also select Make Mailbox from the Actions menu, if you wish. NConfig will go through the process of creating or updating the user's mailbox, reporting its progress in the Message area.

Multiple selection:  You can select as many users as you wish prior to using the Make Mailbox function, and those users need not reside in the same organizational units. If you select an Organization or Organizational Unit object for the Make Mailbox function, then all users in that object and below it in the NDS tree will have their mailboxes created or maintained.

Note that it is always safe to use this function on an existing mailbox - there is no possibility of existing mail or data being damaged or lost through the use of this function. In fact, it is often quite useful to run this function over your entire tree from time to time, since it can perform useful corrective maintenance. When you perform this function on an existing mailbox, you may see occasional errors (usually "error 4") in the Message area - these errors are usually benign and simply indicate that some part of the mailbox process has failed to complete because it had already been done successfully before.

Errors and troubleshooting:  The Make Mailbox function can really only fail for one of two reasons:

1: You may have insufficient rights.  Creating a mailbox is usually best done using the Admin account, or an account that is security-equivalent to the Admin account.

2: The user may not have a home directory.  The user's mailbox resides in his or her home directory on the file server, so the user must have an NDS Home directory attribute properly defined (use NWADMIN to do this), and that directory must exist.


 Getting user mailbox statistics

NConfig can provide detailed statistical reporting about the contents of a user's mailbox, listing the new mail and folders it contains by size and date. You can use this information for many purposes, including as a basis for deciding how to prune a user's mailbox.

To get statistical information on a user's mailbox, simply select that user and click the Mailbox statistics button [image] on the toolbar. NConfig will generate its report in the Message area.

NConfig checks that the user's mailbox is correctly set up, and reports when the user last used it (based on the time stamp on the user's PMAIL.INI file). It then reports the new mail in the user's mailbox, showing the smallest and largest messages, and reporting the amount of mail and the percentage space it occupies by a variety of file sizes. A similar report is generated for folders in the mailbox.

Multiple selection:  You can select as many users as you wish prior to using the Mailbox Statistics function, and those users need not reside in the same organizational units. You cannot select other object types for this function - only users.

The report generated by NConfig in the Message area is plain text and can be copied and pasted into other applications if you wish. The tabular results are laid out using tab characters, and may need slight (but easy) adjustment if imported into a word processor.


 "Pruning" mailboxes (mailbox content management)

In some environments, you may find that it is sometimes necessary to manage the content of user mailboxes: typical examples of this include student laboratories where space is at a premium, or companies with high staff turnover. It may also be useful to be able to take messages meeting certain criteria and pass them onto another user - for example, imagine that a manager is away on holiday: it may be useful to be able to copy mail that arrived in his absence to his secretary.

This process of controlling a mailbox's contents is known as Pruning a mailbox. To perform it within NConfig, select a user, and click the Prune mailbox button [image] on the toolbar. NConfig will open a dialog in which you define the type of messages that should be selected, and what should be done with them.

Selecting messages by size and age:  The control labelled "Select messages that are" allows you to choose any of a number of obvious combinations of message size and message age, which NConfig will use when selecting messages for pruning. Depending on the selection method you choose, you may need to enter either a number of days, or a size in bytes, or both, in the controls so labelled. Note that the message age is calculated on the file's time stamp, not on its RFC822 date field - so, messages that the user has accessed recently may be dramatically newer than their original posting date.

Pruning action:  You can choose to delete any messages that meet the selection criteria, or to move or copy them to another user's mailbox. If you choose the Move or Copy options, NConfig will open a dialog containing a version of the main dialog's tree view - use it to navigate to the user whose mailbox should receive the messages, then double-click that user.

**WARNING: When you choose Delete as your pruning action, the messages will be deleted permanently from the system. We strongly recommend you do a dry run (see below) before pruning by deletion.

Exclusions:  The group of controls under the label "Do not prune messages with these characteristics" allow you to exclude certain types of message from selection. The exclusions are generally geared towards allowing you to preserve messages that are identifiably important, either because the user has directly flagged them in some significant way (for instance, by setting a colour for the message, or by annotating it), or because of some external reason (such as the "urgent" flag being set).

Dry runs:  If you check the control labelled "Dry run - simulate and report actions only", then NConfig will go through the motions of pruning the mailbox, but no mail will actually be affected. You can examine the report in the Message area to see what the results of the actions you have selected will be. We strongly recommend that you dry run any pruning operation where you plan to use the Delete action.


 Configuring Pegasus Mail within NDS contexts

In NDS mode, Pegasus Mail can have multiple configurations within your NDS tree. It expects to find its configuration information in a Login Script object called Pegasus Mail at the same level as the user in the NDS tree. If it cannot find one, it works its way back up the NDS tree until it either finds a configuration object, or else reaches the root of the tree.

This approach allows considerable flexibility, since it means that you can have separate organizational units within your NDS tree, each with its own specific Pegasus Mail configuration.

To configure Pegasus Mail within a specific context, select either an Organization or an Organizational Unit object within your NDS tree, and click the Configure Pegasus Mail button [image] on the NConfig toolbar.

Mailbox location mode:  This should be set to Standard in the majority of cases. You should only set this control to MHS if you are using the now obsolete Novell MHS Services NLMs to handle mail on your file server.

Assume unique names (subtree recursion):  It is possible for two users with exactly the same username to exist within different contexts in your NDS tree; when this happens, it becomes impossible for Pegasus Mail to tell them apart from each other unless you use full NDS Distinguished Names to identify them. If you are certain that your NDS tree contains no duplicate user names, then you can check this control, which will allow users to enter a basic Common Name (cn) for any recipient in your NDS tree, without the user having to know the context in which that user resides.

Use Novell LDAP Server addresses as e-mail synonyms:  For Internet mail, a user's e-mail address is usually a combination of his login name and your server's Internet domain name. If you wish to use an alternative addressing format, (for instance, "First.Last@host.domain"), then you will need to create Synonyms for your users. A synonym is a specialized form of alias which is understood both by Pegasus Mail and by the Mercury Mail Transport System: where an alias only handles incoming mail, a synonym is bidirectional, ensuring that not only will mail be correctly received for the address, but that mail sent out from that address will show the correct address as well. Synonyms are optional, and you can define them for only certain users if you wish - you create a synonym using the Edit user settings and extended features button [image] on the NConfig toolbar. If you are running on NetWare 5.x, or if you are running NetWare 4.x and have installed Novell's LDAP server on your file server, you should check this control. It tells Pegasus Mail to use a standard NDS attribute called Internet Email Address, which is defined when the LDAP server is installed. If the control is not checked, then Pegasus Mail will look for user synonyms in a now-obsolete user attribute called EMail Address, which can only be set using the Novell DOS-based NETADMIN program.

The huge advantage of using the LDAP server address attribute is that it allows Mercury to resolve synonyms without needing a synonym database. We strongly recommend that you check this control if it is possible for you to do so.

Mailserver spool directory  If you have installed the Pegasus Mail Mailserver product to handle local (and optionally Internet) mail on your file server, enter the directory in which Pegasus Mail should create mail jobs to be processed by the Mailserver. This queue may be the same as the spool directory used for Internet mail (see below), or it may be different. NConfig will not create this directory, nor will it grant the necessary [Create] rights that users need within the directory.

Mercury interface:

This section includes settings that control the way Pegasus Mail interacts with the Mercury Mail Transport System if you have installed it on your server.

Enabled:  If checked, then Pegasus Mail will be able to use Mercury as an Internet mail gateway.

Preferred:  Only meaningful if you are also running an MHS-based mail system on your server. If checked, it tells Pegasus Mail that any ambiguous e-mail address should be regarded as an Internet address instead of an MHS address. It does no harm to check this control when no MHS system is present.

Use always:  If checked, tells Pegasus Mail not to attempt to deliver mail locally by itself, but to pass all mail to Mercury for delivery. If you use this option to handle local mail delivery, then users do not need any rights in other users' mailbox directories.

Spool directory:  The directory where Pegasus Mail should place messages for processing by Mercury. All users must have at least file-create rights in this directory, and the directory must exist. It is very important that you specify this path using the Windows UNC path notation (i.e, \\SERVER\VOLUME\PATH) and not the now-obsolete NetWare path notation (i.e, SERVER/VOLUME:PATH).

Internet name:  The domain name which Pegasus Mail should use to form your users' Internet e-mail addresses. Do not include a leading '@' sign in this field.

Organization:  Any string you would like Pegasus Mail to place in the Organization header of outgoing Internet mail. Do not use accented characters in this string.

Time zone:  The default timezone string Pegasus Mail should use in Internet mail, in the form +xxxx or -xxxx. This setting can be overridden by the 32-bit version of Pegasus Mail if it is told to determine its timezone automatically, and is only used as a default value. Note that the timezone must be a numeric offset from Greenwich Mean Time, and must have four digits - so, if you are 5 hours behind GMT, you must express that as -0500.

NetWare MHS and Connect^2 Interface

If you are using NetWare MHS, or a compatible product, such as Infinite Technology's Connect^2 System, then Pegasus Mail can interact with that product to send and receive mail.

Enabled:  Check this control only if you have an MHS-compatible mail system installed on your network.

Preferred: Only meaningful if you are also running the Mercury Mail Transport System on your server. If checked, it tells Pegasus Mail that any ambiguous e-mail address should be regarded as an MHS address instead of an Internet address. It does no harm to check this control when Mercury is not present.

Use always:  If checked, tells Pegasus Mail never to use the Mercury interface, even if it is present and enabled.

MHS Messaging Version:  Unless you have somehow managed to get Novell MHS v1.5 running on your network, this control should always be set to SMF-71. It does no harm to set this control to SMF-70 even if you have an SMF-71 transport installed, but doing so will prevent Pegasus Mail from taking advantage of some of the extra capabilities of the mail system.

Default workgroup:  Just as Internet mail has domains, MHS has workgroups: the workgroup is the part of an MHS address that follows the '@' sign. Pegasus Mail uses this field to construct your users' MHS addresses.

MV Setting:  Where Pegasus Mail should look for the root of your MHS mail tree. It is very important that you specify this path in the Windows UNC path format, not in NetWare format.

Time zone:  The default timezone string Pegasus Mail should use in MHS mail, in the form +xxxx or -xxxx. Note that the timezone must be a numeric offset from Greenwich Mean Time, and must have four digits - so, if you are 5 hours behind GMT, you must express that as -0500.

Use in preference to built-in transport for local mail:  If you want Pegasus Mail to ask MHS to deliver mail to other local MHS users instead of attempting to deliver it by itself, check this control.


 Controlling user addresses and extended settings

See also: Configuring Pegasus Mail in NDS contexts, Synonyms.

Certain features of the Pegasus Mail system are regarded as extended capabilities, and need to be enabled on a user-by-user basis. These features include:

* Autoforwarding of mail sent by other local users

* Autoforwarding of mail arriving from the Internet via Mercury

* Whether or not mail should be delivered as well as forwarded

* Whether or not the user will generate "confirmation of reading" reports

* Whether the user's mailbox is enabled or not

* Whether the user wishes to receive one-line NetWare broadcast messages when new mail arrives.

You can edit these features within NConfig by selecting a user and clicking the User settings and extended features button, [image].

Alternative e-mail address, or synonym:  For Internet mail, a user's e-mail address is usually a combination of his login name and your server's Internet domain name. If you wish to use an alternative addressing format, (for instance, "First.Last@host.domain"), then you will need to create Synonyms for your users. A synonym is a specialized form of alias which is understood both by Pegasus Mail and by the Mercury Mail Transport System: where an alias only handles incoming mail, a synonym is bidirectional, ensuring that not only will mail be correctly received for the address, but that mail sent out from that address will show the correct address as well. Synonyms are optional, and you can define them for only certain users if you wish. Click here for more information on configuring and using synonyms.

Autoforwarding: Pegasus Mail supports autoforwarding, or the redirection of your mail to another account. You can autoforward either mail delivered to you from local addresses, mail received from the Mercury Mail Transport System, both or neither. It is possible to forward one type of mail but not the other. To set autoforwarding, place the forwarding address in either or both of the available autoforward fields. You can forward local mail to any address WinPMail can understand including NetWare groups and distribution lists. Internet mail can only be forwarded to simple local addresses or to Internet addresses. Mail arriving via NetWare MHS and compatible transports cannot be autoforwarded.

Deliver incoming messages even when autoforwarding is active:  Check this control if you want Pegasus Mail to leave a copy of mail as well as forwarding it when you have autoforwarding addresses set. This option has no effect if you are not forwarding your mail.

Accept and return confirmation of reading requests:  If this control is not checked, then Pegasus Mail will not return confirmation that messages have been read when such confirmations are requested. Local users will be told the moment they send the message that no confirmation will be supplied, but Internet and MHS mail will receive no such notification.

Advise of new mail via network broadcast messages: When this control is checked, Pegasus Mail will send a NetWare-style broadcast message to indicate that a new mail message has arrived. If you find the broadcast messages annoying but do not want to use the NetWare CASTOFF command to disable them, uncheck this box..

Disable mail delivery to this address: If this control checked, it will not be possible to send mail to this address.

Mercury autoreply

If the Mercury mail transport system or the Pegasus Mail Mailserver is installed and available on your file server, then your users can create automatic replies that will be dispatched whenever new mail arrives in their mailbox. The group of controls at the bottom of this dialog allow you to control whether or not an automatic reply is sent, and its contents.

To create or edit an automatic reply, click the Edit autoreply button, and enter the text you want to send automatically in the editable area. Check or uncheck the control labelled Enable automatic replies to determine whether or not the reply should be sent. When automatic replies are disabled, the contents of the automatic reply message are stored in a different location and can be edited in the same way as when automatic replies are turned on.

Mercury will only send an automatic reply to any given address once in any 48-hour period: this prevents mail storms and stops people sending mail regularly from being deluged with autoreply notices. You can also create a file called AREPLY.KFS in the user's new mail directory containing a list of addresses that should never receive automatic replies, one per line.


NConfig Options - controlling the program's operation

The options in this dialog allow you to customize some of the global aspects of the way NConfig works. In general, once you have adjusted the settings in this dialog, you should not need to adjust them again - the settings are inherently global in nature and there is usually no good reason to adjust them on a context-by-context basis.

Use LDAP addresses as address synonyms  For Internet mail, a user's e-mail address is usually a combination of his login name and your server's Internet domain name. If you wish to use an alternative addressing format, (for instance, "First.Last@host.domain"), then you will need to create Synonyms for your users. A synonym is a specialized form of alias which is understood both by Pegasus Mail and by the Mercury Mail Transport System: where an alias only handles incoming mail, a synonym is bidirectional, ensuring that not only will mail be correctly received for the address, but that mail sent out from that address will show the correct address as well. Synonyms are optional, and you can define them for only certain users if you wish - you create a synonym using the Edit user settings and extended features button [image] on the NConfig toolbar. If you are running on NetWare 5.x, or if you are running NetWare 4.x and have installed Novell's LDAP server on your file server, you should check this control. It tells Pegasus Mail to use a standard NDS attribute called Internet Email Address, which is defined when the LDAP server is installed. If the control is not checked, then Pegasus Mail will look for user synonyms in a now-obsolete user attribute called EMail Address, which can only be set using the Novell DOS-based NETADMIN program, or from within NConfig, via the Edit user settings and extended features dialog.

If you are using the NDS version of the Mercury Mail Transport system on your file server to provide Internet Mail services, you will need to instruct it separately to use the same settings for synonyms, by adding the line LDAP_Synonyms : 1 to the [Mercury] section of your MERCURY.INI.

Use Pegasus Mail Mailserver for all local mail delivery  A specially modified version of the Mercury Mail Transport system, called the Pegasus Mail Mailserver (or PMM) can be installed on your file server, which handles all local mail delivery as well as optionally providing Internet mail services. If you have installed this server, then Pegasus Mail becomes a maintenance-free system - you no longer need to make mailboxes for your users, nor do you need complex grants of rights to allow Pegasus Mail's internal mail delivery code to operate - all you need is a directory in which all your mail users have [Create] rights. If you have installed the Pegasus Mail Mailserver on your file server, or have an equivalent local delivery agent of some kind, check this control. This setting is global, because it is not recommended that you attempt to mix the use of Pegasus Mail's built-in delivery agent with delivery via the PMM - it is strongly recommended that you use only one delivery method for your entire NDS tree. Different contexts within your NDS tree may use different PMM queues - the path to the queue directory is entered in the Pegasus Mail configuration record for each context, accessed by selecting that context and clicking the Configure Pegasus Mail button [image] on the NConfig toolbar.

Mailserver delivery queue directory  The path you enter in this field is used as the default value for the Pegasus Mail Mailserver submission queue in all subsequent new Pegasus Mail configurations within your tree. It can be left blank if you wish.

When making mailboxes...  The controls in this section only apply if you are not using the Pegasus Mail Mailserver on your file server. If you have installed the PMM, then it will automatically handle all mailbox and rights management without further intervention by the system administrator. If you have not installed the PMM, then you can use these controls to alter the way Pegasus Mail's built-in delivery agent works on your network.

Grant rights to  When NConfig needs to grant trustee rights or NDS Access Control Permissions, it usually grants them to a special NDS entity called [Root], which means "Any authenticated user". This is usually fine, since there are seldom any significant security concerns with the type of rights Pegasus Mail requires. If you wish, you can tell NConfig to grant these rights to any valid NDS Group object instead, by typing its fully-qualified Distinguished Name in this field. NConfig does not create the group, nor does it manipulate its membership - that is up to you. Note that any object name you enter in this field must be a full name, expressed relative to the root of your NDS tree.

Do not descend into subtrees when an OU is selected  Normally, if you highlight an Organization or Organizational Unit in your NDS tree, then click the Make mailbox button [image] on the toolbar, NConfig will create and maintain mailboxes for all users in all Organizational units below the selected item in the NDS tree. Checking this control tells NConfig that it should only operate on users within the selected context, and should not descend through contexts lower in the tree.

Do not grant trustee [RF] rights to PMXF.INI  Certain Pegasus Mail extended features are controlled via settings in a file called PMXF.INI in each user's mail directory. In normal operation, all other mail users need to be able to read this file, in case forwarding is required - NConfig usually makes a grant of [RF] rights to the file to permit this. If you would prefer that NConfig not make this grant of rights, check this control. Note that if you are using the Mercury Mail Transport system to handle all mail on your system (as opposed to using the Pegasus Mail Mailserver), you will normally check this control, since the grant of rights is not required to allow Mercury to operate correctly.

Do not add [R] ACL on 'Home directory' attribute  In order to deliver mail to other users, Pegasus Mail must be able to work out where each user's NDS home directory is located, so it can write the mail file into the user's mailbox directory. By default, NDS does not allow sufficient access rights for Pegasus Mail to interrogate other users' Home directory NDS attribute, so NConfig grants the necessary rights. If you do not want NConfig to grant these rights, check this control. ***Warning!***  When using Pegasus Mail's built-in local delivery agent, mail will not be deliverable to users whose mailboxes are created while this control is checked. Note that if you are using the Mercury Mail Transport system to handle all mail on your system (as opposed to using the Pegasus Mail Mailserver), you will normally check this control, since the grant of rights is not required to allow Mercury to operate correctly.

Do not add [R] ACL on 'Full name' attribute  Your users can access a list of other users on your file server by pressing <F2> while running Pegasus Mail. For some inexplicable reason, though, Novell's default NDS permissions do not permit users to see other users' full name! To get around this, NConfig usually grants the necessary permissions for you when you create a users' mailbox - if you would prefer that it not do this, check this control - this will result in your users only being able to see other users' surnames in the user list.