Thanks to Maria Helm for her advise.

To continue the steps, you should have knowledge about mail journaling, mail-in database, server rules, and how to create a simple agent. Don’t worry this is a very simple agent, you do not need to write a single script.

1. Create a mail in database, give it a easy to understand name.

2. Enable the mail journaling, make sure that mail journalling use send email to not copy to.
Send email to the mail in database that we just created.

3. Create a simple agent to reply every email with your custom message.
Dont worry, this is a simple agent, no script required.
When you in simple agent, enter will close the simple agent, it is better that you type the out of office notice somewhere else like in the
notepad, and then copy paste it into the agent.
Run the agen from non ordinary users, in my case i run it with an administrator account.

4. Create server rule to journal every documents excepts, email from your own domain, and you can add more exceptions if you want.

So now every emails from outside of your domain will be captured and then sent to a mail in database, where an agent will be ready to reply with an out of office message.

Jun  8 10:56:24 mail dccproc[13204]: continue not asking DCC 78 seconds after 5

Jun  8 10:56:27 mail dccproc[13207]: continue not asking DCC 75 seconds after 5

Jun  8 10:56:37 mail dccproc[13228]: continue not asking DCC 65 seconds after 5

Jun  8 10:56:44 mail dccproc[13247]: continue not asking DCC 58 seconds after 5

Jun  8 10:56:49 mail dccproc[13251]: continue not asking DCC 53 seconds after 5

Jun  8 10:56:49 mail dccproc[13252]: continue not asking DCC 53 seconds after 5

Jun  8 10:56:58 mail dccproc[13272]: continue not asking DCC 44 seconds after 5

Jun  8 10:57:05 mail dccproc[13288]: continue not asking DCC 37 seconds after 5

So, there is something wrong with my dcc process.
After several google, there is only two options.
-Problem with firewall/connection
-Problem with configuration

I know, this is not a problem with firewall/connection, because I did not changed anything and the server have direct connection to the internet.

So, there must be some configuration problems.

I run cdcc info from the console, and notice there problem with the map file.
Do some google again, and find this and this.
And I do exactly what it say.

cdcc -q info map.txt
cdcc “load map.txt”

That’s it, and DCC runs again.

If you are not (yet) use DCC in your spamassassin, than you should consider to install one.

DCC is a free software, as long as you don’t sell the device or the service to to others. Reade the DCC license here.

Installation DCC may be confusing for some people (including me ), but when it installed and configured properly, it will catch more spam that you already catch.

The good point is, if the DCC already installed, than is easy to update it.  You just need to download  the updatedcc script here, and copied it to /usr/local/bin (might be different with your OS ) with the rest of DCC files.

How to update? Just run the updatedcc and the process will run automatically.

After all the process completed, do a simple check to see if your DCC already updated.

dccproc -V

It will show the version of your DCC software.

Lotus foundation is a “software suite” that has it own operating system based on striped Open Suse linux, and a striped down version of Lotus Domino server. It has it own anti spam and anti virus software, file sharing, firewall and even VPN server, that why I called it a software suite.

This is a software suite, so it can be installed in any hardware, but maybe some IBM Business Partner will sell it with the hardware to reduce hardware compatibilities issues.

And for the email clients, it support webmail, lotus notes clients, ms outlook and any other email clients that support pop3 an
In the advertisements, it state that it can up and running in less than 30 minutes, and it designed for small office with no IT personnel.

The suite can self configured, it mean that it will automatically detect the network infrastructure and configure it self based on it founding.

If the suite detected that there are some malfunction in part of it software, it will try to heal it self, by restore the configuration from the last backup, and it will done automatically.

In the demo, the hardware come with two sata harddisks, on for the suite and the other one for the backup. If something really bad happen, it will only take 30 minutes to restore to it default stat, and maybe another 10-30 minutes to restore from the backup.

You can get the brochure here, and the datasheet here.

I guess it true, that the suite is designed for small office that has no IT personnel, and soon I’ll be out of the job .

This is a big news, for people who maintains email servers everywhere in the world.

That the White House email server was down almost for a day. Yes, the White House, where they should hire experts from around the world.

But the email server was down.

Source

How is it possible that the e-mail system for the White House could go down that long, a caller asked? Press secretary Robert Gibbs had just apologized on live television for the lack of any e-mail contact.

“We still don’t know,” the help-line guy said, adding that two e-mail servers had been rebooted but that two others remained mysteriously down, with no immediate explanation.

He then abruptly put the caller on hold, returning momentarily to say that he was no longer authorized to answer questions.

Remained mysteriously down, lol, that is very funny.

Source

As of Tuesday morning, the White House was once again sending its regular slew of e-mails.

Press secretary Robert Gibbs acknowledged the outage during a briefing to reporters Monday afternoon. White House aides at the briefing had to pass out photocopies of the executive orders signed by the president that day, rather than e-mailing them to reporters. The outage, however, did not appear to cause any major disruptions at the White House.

Well I guess email is not really important in the white house, while many other business depend heavily on email traffic.

And that what will hapen if they used MS Exchange as their mail server.

Or, maybe they should change it back into Lotus Domino/Notes system? Maybe now they regret the migration?

But few days ago, I got called form three of my users that they have problem when receiving emails. It always popping up for password, even though they already entered the correct one.

I checked the server log, and it said something about maildrop exclusive access. This is common problem, the problem usually solved just for waiting three or five minute. But this time, waiting for ten minutes still did not solved the problem.

So I check the server for more hints.

From Domino administrator, I check the server task, there I saw that there is pop3 task still providing task for the problematic users even the users already closed their outlook, so I guess the pop3 task is hanging or something.

So I tried to restart the pop3 server in office hours, and that caused more problem. The pop3 server can’t closed completely because it seem that the pop3 for the problematic users can’t be closed. So I have to restart the whole server.

After restarted the server I tried to do send and receive again. First is running and then asking for the pasword again. I checked the server task and realize that the pop3 task is hanging again.

Searched both google and lotus domino forum and there is no helpful hints.

It’s time to be panic.

There was not much that I can do, except to told the users that temporarily they can access their email via webmail, while I tried to solved the problem.

In a way home, I realize that what if one of email is corrupt and cause the problem?

So at home I login to the server again, marked all the emails as read via webmail so it will not be downloaded via pop3, and than restart the server.

After the server restarted I quickly check the server task, there is no pop3 task hanging. Good.

I setup a new outlook account for one of m problematic user and than do the send and receive. It worked.

I did several task, and it seem it solved the problem.

So the rest of the emails, I downloaded them via imap not pop3.

I still don’t know why email got corrupted and cause problem for pop3 task.

I’m sure that this problem will happen again, even I don’t know why it happpen, but at least I know how to solved it.

With outlook express, you will be facing many problems.

These are the most common problem that I encounter with outlook express.

Missing emails (corrupt dbx files)

Outlook express based on dbx files. Each folder in outlook express actually one dbx file. The structure of the folders are stored in special file called folders.dbx.

The problem with folder in outlook express is if the outlook express closed unexpected, one of the folder may become corrupted. Whe the folder got corrupted you will notice missing emails, worst case all the emails in that folder are missing.

When this happen, DO NOT run compact, or you will loose your emails for good.

There are many utility to recover the corrupted folder, the utility actually extract each emails from the dbx file into may eml files. One email one eml file.

The utility that I like most is Advanced Outlook Express Repair,is very simple and do the job done.

There is also freeware for it called Macallan Outlook Express Extraction, or many more in http://www.insideoe.com/resources/tools.htm or try google it for more tools.

==Update==

Alex just added outlook express dbx extractor as his favorite dbx recovery tools, you can read his comments in here.

Thanks for Alex for this info.

====

Can’t send and receives emails

These two problem most likely because the inbox folder or sent folder already reach it maximum size, which is 2 GB.

The real problem with outlook express is there is no warning at all if one of the folder reaching it maximun size until it’s too late.

When you can send email or your email stack in oubox folder than your sent items folder is already full, reached it’s maximun size.
If you can’t receive email, than your inbox folder already full.

There are two options to fix it.

1. The easiest way is to moved emails from sent or inbox folder (respectively) to another folder and than run compact. It may take sometime to finish.

2. Or you can create a new folder, click it once so outlook express will create the dbx file. Quit outlook express. Find the dbx file in windows explorer and delete the dbx file that you just created. Find the inbox or sent folder (respectively), rename it with the same name of the folder that you just created. When you run outlook express again, it will re-create the inbox or sent folder (respectively). The old inbox or sent folder is now in the folder you just created.

There is also another possibility that outlook express can’t send and receive emails because of buggy anti virus software. I found it with symantec anti virus 8 and symantec anti virus 9. With symantec you just disable the internet email auto protect, with other anti virus should be similar.

Relaying Not Allowed

You can send email to your colleague within the same domain, but you can’t send email to another domain. You will get the 505 Relaying Not Allowed message.

If this happen, try to enable outgoing email requires authentication. It seem the mail server you use require smtp auth for users to send emails to another domain.

Can’t open Outlook Express

This problem some times happen without any reason at all. It actually still trying to load, just take a long time to finish. Many user will think that their outlook express is hang or crash.

To test it very simple. Just login in safe mode, and try to open outlook express. If it run, than there is nothing wrong with your outlook express, just need a longer time to load. In my case it may take 30 minutes to one hour.

If in safe mode the outlook express still not run, than you might have corrupt folders. You can take a look at my previous post about it.

That’s all, the most common problem that I encounter with outlook express. Maybe other people have another problem that not in my list. For that try this Inside Oulook Express for solutions.

To become a good mail administrator you have to have a lot of patients. Really, based on my 12 years of experiences.

Don’t believe me?

This is my conversations with my users over the phone.

User : The server is down (it’s not a question).
Me : Which server?
User : (silent) That server.
Me : (guessing that will be the mail server) No, the server is not down.
User : But I can’t connect to the server.
Me : Is your friend that sit next to you can’t connect to server too?
User : (I can hear that he asking the question to his friend) No, he can connect to the server.
Me : So the problem is in your computer, not the server. What is your computer name so I can remotely access from here?
User : (long silent) My computer name is samsung.
Me : (confuse) Your computer name is samsung? (ping samsung, got reply time out).
User : Yes, it written here samsung.
Me : Written where?
User : Here in my monitor.
Me : (big smile in the face) No, it’s not your computer name, is the brand of your monitor.
User : (silent) How do I know my computer name?
Me : No, it’s Ok. What is your email address? (I can found out his computer name from the server)
User : (silent) You don’t know my email address?
Me : (can’t help it, now I’m laughing) Sorry, who is this again?

It’s not happen everyday, but some times this kind of conversations do happen.

This is the error message

—– Transcript of session follows —– … while talking to
some.domain.com.:
>>> DATA
<<< 554 5.7.1 Service unavailable; Client host [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]
blocked
using dnsbl-2.uceprotect.net; Net xxx.xxx.0.0/16 is UCEPROTECT-Level2 listed
because of 301 abusers. Your ISP xxx has to fix this. See:
httpx://www.uceprotect.net/rblcheck.php?ipr=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
554 5.0.0 Service unavailable
<<< 554 5.5.1 Error: no valid recipients

I heard about uceprotect before, how they block the entire ISP’s IP just because of some users of that ISP sending spam emails, but never though that will happen to me.

Normal rbl (dnsl) usually only block certain IP’s, but this uceprotect “smart” and “brave” enough to block the whole ISP’s IP range.

Simply said that I’m getting punished by uceprotect because somebody else spams. That is stupid.

In their website clearly says that my IP was not, is not involved in a spamrun, but still getting “the punishment”. This is the quote from their website.

YOU ARE NOT!. Your IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx was NOT involved in a spamrun, but has a spammy neighborhood. Other customers within this range did not care about their security and got hacked and started spamming, while your provider has possibly not even noticed that there is a serious problem.
We are sorry for you, but you have chosen an provider not acting fast enough on spammers.

I try so hard to make my IP’s clean, by removing viruses and make sure that no spam going outside through my mail servers. But my hard work is not enough, I still got blocked by uceprotect because somebody else spams.

Uceprotect in their website suggest that I should change ISP, that not that easy, and certainly not cheap.

So, I use a shortcut. I contact the admin of the domain that use uceprotect, and asked politely if it possible for them not to use uceprotect for emails from my domains. I gave them every information they need and explain my situations, and thankfully they agreed and approved my request.

Uceprotect may be want to be a good guy in spam fighter, but to me, uceprotect simply a bad guy.

Most of the signatures are “company policy” that will be added automatically everytime the employees send an email.

That what happen, if management involved in email signature. Very long, boring and annoying signature.

This is just an example about annoying email signature.

The information in this message may be proprietary and/or confidential,
and protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the
intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering
this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any
dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly
prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please
notify xxx, yyy immediately by replying to this message and deleting it from your computer.

See, how long that is?

Edit:

I found this article from www.usatoday.com very interested.