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Hostway MFG Email Platform Migration
All you need to know about the migration of your mailboxes and email addresses to our new MFG (Mail Filter Gateway) email platform.
Why is Hostway introducing a new email cluster now?
As we have grown, Hostway UK has collected a number of disparate mail systems, some of which are not as reliable or flexible as we'd like. The time for a new platform that replaces these individual systems with one service that will meet our customers' needs - not just now but well into the future - has come.
Does this affect Microsoft Exchange email?
No, the MFG platform is a replacement for Standard Email and not our Microsoft Exchange hosting.
Hostway provides two platforms for email:
What will the key benefits be?
The new MFG platform will offer a much more resilient service as the system is setup as an HA (Highly Available) solution with no single point of failure in the entire mail cluster structure.
- Improved spam and virus detection will be introduced.
- The move will also include an upgrade to SiteMail 7.0 (see below).
- Standard mail storage size will increase to 50MB (at least double the outgoing allocation).
- Authorised mail attachement size will increase to 25MB.
When & How are migrations to MFG happening?
- Email Account migrations are due to begin the Week Commencing 19th of May.
- Customer accounts will be migrated at night when impact to traffic is expected to be lower.
- We regret that we will not be able to give customers an EXACT date for their move. Accounts will be migrated in 'phases' across each server, and communicating move times to different customer segments while performing the work would be not only extremely difficult, but also very time consuming.
- Depending on which mail server you are currently hosted on, your migration date will therfore vary. It is **very important** that you clarify what you need to do BEFORE W/C 19th May, by using the information below, and where necessary by checking with our Support Team.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO CHANGE YOUR SETTINGS RIGHT NOW
From the 19th of May onwards the migrations will be staggered. Many customers and customers who have ordered hosting or email plans after January 2007 would not need to make any changes as your settings remain the same. Older customers or customers who have orderd hosting or email plans before 2007 may receive username/password errors or "unable to connect to server errors" in their mail clients. In the event you receive such an error after the 19th of May please check your settings against the details on this page.
PLEASE BACKUP YOUR SITEMAIL ADDRESS BOOK
Due to the complexity of the mailbox migration unfortunatly we are unable to copy your Sitmail address book or signatures across to the new platform.
To export your Sitemail address book please do the following:
- Go to http://sitemail.securepod.com
- Choose the "Advanced" interface from the "Interface" drop down list, fill in your details and login
- From the top menu choose "Tools" then "Address Book" then "Tools" again, and you will see the option "Export"
- Once you have downloaded and saved the "abook.csv" you can import this back into the new Sitemail 7.0 when migration is complete using the same method but choosing the "Import" option.
If you have queries about any of this please do contact our Support department
at support@hostway.co.uk
What changes will there be?
- Catch-all accounts
Please note that after the upgrade you will no longer have access to a "catch-all" account. Before, you were able to setup a specific email address to catch all emails that were not addressed directly to one of your defined email addresses. Due to the amount of spam these accounts receive and the unnecessary strain this puts on the mail server; we no longer provide this as an option. This now means that you have to define each email address you wish to receive email on either as a separate mailbox or email rule delivering to a single mailbox.
- Sitemail 7.0 upgrade
The upgrade will also include an upgrade to SiteMail 7.0. However this will mean that all settings saved in the original SiteMail will not be copied across. This includes saved contacts and signatures. It is then recommended that you make a backup of these settings so that you can re-add them once the migration is complete. All email and email folders WILL be copied across to the new platform.
Mailbox Quotas
Mailbox quotas are NOT updated by the script, so it is best to check the mailbox quotas BEFORE migrating and then add the additional space once the mail is migrated across. If you send support us a list of domains and the quotas that they should have we'll get them set up for you immediately.
CleanMail Whitelists
CleanMail Whitelists are not retained during the transfer, in fact CleanMail is no longer a feature used by the MFG mail platform. New customers to the MFG platform will need to set up Whitelists within SiteMail from now on.
What are the new mail protocols?
Our new platform provides a choice between POP3 and IMAP.
- POP3 (most common/default choice)
Your mail client connects up to our mail server and pulls down the mail from our server mailbox and into your mail clients' (eg. MS Outlook) mailbox. Optionally you can set your mail client to leave a copy on the server for a defined period of time and your mail client will automatically remove old mail from the server mailbox according to its' timestamp.
- IMAP
Your mail client connects up to our mail server and downloads a copy of the email and performs any actions or changes made by your mail client (deletions, folder moves) to the mailbox. The upside is that your mail client INBOX and our mail server INBOX are synchronised with each other. The only downside of using IMAP is that by storing your mail on the server you will potentially use up your mailbox quota quicker.
What are the new mail client settings?
These are the settings you need to use for your mail client software.
| User / Mailbox name: | (your full email address) |
| User / Mailbox password: | (can be reset in Sitecontrol) |
|
| Incoming server (POP3): | pop.yourdomain |
| Incoming server port (POP3): | 110 |
|
| Incoming server (IMAP): | imap.yourdomain |
| Incoming server port (IMAP): | 143 |
|
| Outgoing server (SMTP): | smtp.yourdomain |
| Outgoing server port (SMTP): | 25 |
| SMTP authentication: | use incoming server username / password |
| (SASL authentication) |
What are the DNS settings if I control my DNS elsewhere?
Below are the following A record IP addresses which need to be setup on your DNS zone file.
| MAIL (MX record): | 83.246.86.166 |
| POP: | 83.246.86.166 |
| IMAP: | 83.246.86.166 |
| SMTP: | 83.246.86.170 |
Or alternatively you can use the hostnames
| Standard |
pop3.mail01.siteprotect.e |
imap.mail01.siteprotect.eu |
smtp.mail01.siteprotect.eu |
|
| Secure |
pop3s.mail01.siteprotect.eu |
imaps.mail01.siteprotect.eu |
smtps.mail01.siteprotect.eu |
Sitemail 7.0
SiteMail 7.0 is an Internet browser-based email client. You can get instant access to your server mailbox at any time and from any location as long as you have a Web browser and a connection to the Internet.
To access Sitemail 7.0 - http://sitemail.hostway.co.uk
New features
- Internet search box has been added to the Simple interface<
- CleanMail Plus 3.0 support
- Outlook Sync utility
You can synchronize your SiteMail 7.0 account with Microsoft TM OutlookTM. By doing so, your Microsoft TM OutlookTM Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks data will synchronize with your SiteMail 7.0 Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks data (and visa versa.)
You can download the Outlook plugin here.
MFG Email Delays
Some customers have reported delays between sending an email and the receipt of it.
Mail delays of 15-20 minutes are most likely being caused by the greylisting feature on MFG. This is designed to reduce spam, and is commonly implemented by many hosting providers. The way this works is that an incoming message to an MFG user has it's envelope sender, envelope recipient and sending IP checked. If it is not seen within the database, it will be temporarily rejected for a period of 3 minutes. Since most MTAs (Mail Transfer Agent) will retry sending messages after 15-20 minutes, it will be delayed for this period of time.
Just to provide more details on the greylisting: the entry in the database that is created by a message will be composed of a 'triplet' of the sender IP, envelope sender, and envelope recipient. Thus if a different recipient is mailed by the same sender from the same IP, this counts as a new 'triplet'. A 'first time' triplet, or a database entry created the first time a message is received, which will block, is stored in the database for 24hrs, after which it is discarded. This helps prevent potential build up of too many entries in the database. A triplet that will allow is kept for 35 days. So, once a message has been accepted to a recipient from a particular IP to a particular recipient, it will be held as allowed in the database for 35 days from the time of the last received message, so that messages being sent within 35 days of each other, and that match an allowed triplet will automatically be accepted.
Don't worry to much if you don't understand this all. Basically to sum up; the delays are caused by processes in place to prevent spam from getting to your mailbox and the recipients.
If you have queries about any of this please do contact our Support department at support@hostway.co.uk
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