5. Options
5.1
Basic Settings – Synchroization and Setup
5.1.1 Synchronize
List with Inbox
5.1.2 MailList Controller Core Setup
5.2 Advanced Send Options
5.2.1 Retries
5.2.2 HELO/Hostname
5.2.3 Message – ID
5.2.4 X-Mailer
5.3 Mailserver – Advanced Server
Options
5.3.1 # per Con
5.3.2 Max.
POP3/IMAP
5.4 Default Autoresponder
5.5 Returned Message Detection
5.6 Subscribe Archive
5.7 Global Blacklist
The program has list specific options (See: 4. List Settings), which are different for each list and global program options.
Double-click on the List to open the "List
Settings".
5.1 Basic Settings – Synchroization
and Setup
5.1.1 Synchronize
List with Inbox
Enter the interval for auto "Synchronization". Minimum value
is 5 minutes, maximum value is 960 minutes, 0 to disable. If you disable auto "Synchronization"
- and the program should process incoming messages – then you need to click
on "Sync" from time to time. Its important, that you stop/re-start
the mail service once after you changed this value.
During a "Synchronize"
the program connects to the lists inbox (POP3/IMAP account) and checks for new
messages. This can be a subscribe or remove request, an external client message
or a reply from a list member to one of your mailings.
5.1.2 MailList Controller
Core Setup
Click on "Run MailList Controller Core Setup" to change the program Setup. (See: 1.1 The First Start – Program Setup)
5.2 Advanced Send Options
5.2.1 Retries
Specifies the amount of retries if the message delivery fails for a recipient.
The HELO (hostname) is a stage of the SMTP protocol where a SMTP server introduce them selves to each other. The default value is "auto", which retrieves the hostname from your system. This setting is important if you want to use reverse DNS.
The message ID is another special field inside the mail header. Its an unique
message identifier that refers to a particular version of a particular message.
The default value is "auto", which uses your hostname as part of the
ID.
Sample: <3DA8420.1C6E10B@mars.arclab.com>
The x-mailer header field is used to identify the mailclient used to create
the message.
Default: <List Name>
- <List Name> : The List Name as defined in the List Settings
- <Friendly Name> : The Frienly Name as defined in the List Settings
- <No X-Mailer Mail Header Field> : All outgoing messages will not contain the x-mailer header field.
- <Randomize> : The program will generate a random x-mailer (experimental).
A few mail-filters might filter messages based on the x-mailer header field, but most will ignore it. If many persons are using the same x-mailer field then someone could add a rule to filter all messages sent from a particular mailclient. For this reason the program does not use a static x-mailer. The x-mailer can only contain the following chars: a-z, A-Z, 0-9, . ( ) [ ] - [SPACE] all other chars will be ignored. If the x-mailer is empty, then it will be removed.
5.3 Mailserver – Advanced
Server Options
5.3.1
# per Con
The program disconnects after the specified number of messages. This setting does not limit the speed or throttle down the send process, it just disconnects and reconnects. Some (external) mailserver or third party program like e.g. Anti-Virus can only handle a specific number of messages per connection.
Specifies the maximum number of messages the program should receive during
a POP3/IMAP session. This settings could become important if your POP3/IMAP
server has problem returning a huge number of messages at once. Please don't
change this settings unless you have problem with your mailserver or anti-virus
software.
Default: 1000
The program can automatically send autoresponder messages. Such a message is sent when a user subscribes or removes from one of your lists ...
- "Welcome Message" is sent to welcome the new user (after a subscribe request)
- "Bye Message" is sent if a member removes from the list (remove request)
- "Subscribe Confirmation" and "Remove Confirmation" are used for "Double Opt-In"
Here you can change/edit default autoresponder messages. The default messages
are used for all lists if autoresponders are enabled. You can enable (default:
enabled) autoresponders from the List Settings. You can also use custom autoresponders
for each list. List specific autoresponder can be setup in the "List Settings".
For the autoresponder you can not use the same fields as you can use when
sending out a list message.
The following fields are available:
##LISTEMAIL## Lists Email-address
##LISTNAME## List-name
##LIST## List-name
##ADDTAG## Subscribe Keyword (tag)
##SUBSCRIBETAG## Subscribe Keyword (tag)
##REMOVETAG## Remove Keyword (tag)
[EMAIL] Users email address
5.5 Returned Message Detection
After you have sent a list message, its normal that you receive a few returned
messages. Maybe the emailaddress is incorrect or not longer valid. MailList
Controller can automatically detect returned emails and remove or mark the email
address which is not or not longer valid. You can fully customize the search
process, so you can detect most returned messages.
Enable the option "Detect
returned messages" to activate returned mail detection. Normally the program
changes the member status to "Returned" if a returned message was
detected. The option "Delete Members" can be used to delete the members
completely. This feature (delete) is not available on linked lists. The search
process is based on keywords inside the returned message.
The program
supports different detection methods and filters:
- [R] means the message will be removed (when using POP3) or moved to
the "MailList Controller" inbox subfolder when using IMAP. The
status of the member will not be changed / the member will not be removed!
- [D] means the program will update the member to "Returned"
(or delete the member if selected). The message will be removed (when using
POP3) or moved to the "MailList Controller" inbox subfolder when
using IMAP
[R] Auto-Reply: The program will
remove auto-replies like e.g. out of office
(Disabled by default)
[R] Transient Message: Transient messages are temporary
messages
(Disabled by default)
[D] Mail Block: The message was blocked by a spam-filter
or IP address-filter on the recipients mailserver
(Enabled by default)
[D] Hard Bounce: The recipients email address does
not or no longer exist
(Enabled by default)
[D] Soft
Bounce: The recipients mailaccount is over quota, so the mail cannot
be delivered at this time.
(Enabled by default)
[D]
General Bounce: The message returned - reason not specified
(Enabled
by default)
[R] Challenge-Response:
Some accounts are spam-protected by a challenge-response system, this means
the sender must type in e.g. a number on a website.
(Disabled by default)
[D] Message Filter: detection
based on (custom) keywords in the from and subject line.
(Disabled by default
- the default detection routines should detect a very high percentage of returned
messages - only use this filter if the regular detection does not work, e.g.
if your mailserver is returning messages in an uncommon way)
Click on "Customize Filter Keywords" to open the keyword
dialog. Here you can enter additonal keywords for the detection process.
Sample for a returned message (Message Filter):
From: "Mail Delivery System" <Mailer-Daemon@arclab.com>
matches the keywords: MAIL DELIVERY and MAILER-DAEMON
Subject: Mail delivery failed: returning message
to sender
matches the keywords: MAIL DELIVERY
The from
and also the subject header line must contain at least one of the keywords,
but some mailserver are
returning a NUL-Email. If thats the case, then the
program will continue with seaching the subject line, even if
the from-keyword
was not found.
In the next step the program searches the messagebody
for email addresses.
A message that
you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is
a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:
doesnotexist@arclab.com
SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<doesnotexist@arclab.com>:
host mx0.arclab.com [80.237.128.199]: 550 Address invalid
In this
sample the program would detect the email address: doesnotexist@arclab.com
This function could be used to save the Message Source of incoming Subscribe
and Subscribe-Confirmation Messages in .eml Format to the Harddisk. The archived
Messages could be used to proof, that the user has really subscribed to your
List.
Sample .eml Message Source:
…
Received: from pxxxx.xxx.xxxxx.xxx ([87.xxx.xx.xx]
helo=[xxx.xxx.xx.xxx]); authenticated by
xxxxx.xxxxxx.xxxxxx.xxx running
ExIM with esmtpsa (TLSv1:RC4-MD5:128) id xxxxx-xxxxxx-DU; Sun, 01 Nov
2009
18:00:56 +0100
…
The "Received" shows the path from the
sender PC to your mailserver.
If you use a webform, then you should include
the IP address of the user in the body, because the path will
show the IP
of the webserver and not the users IP.
See also:
How to Read and Analyze the Email Header Fields of a Message
The Blacklist is a Text File, which contains a List of Emailadresses (or
Parts) to exclude. Incoming Messages
from an excluded Address will be ignored
and the Blacklist can be also used to filter unwanted Addresses during
the
Import.
Sample Blacklist File:
//
// Syntax:
// sample@domain.tld to
exclude a single Email
// @domain.tld to exclude a Domain
// unwanted
to exclude a String inside the Email
//
badspammer@spamdomain.tld
@anotherspamdomain.tld
badperson
The Blacklist will not filter out existing Subscribers
or manually added Subscribers of one of your Lists!
