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Chapter 1: Introduction to
Kerio MailServer (continued)
1.3
Monitoring and management
1.31
Status monitors and logs
1.32
Event scheduling
1.33
Archives and back-ups
1.4
Summary Questions
Next
section...
1.3 Monitoring and
management
Monitoring and management are important areas to
consider for administration to keep your mail server running smoothly.
As we begin to consider monitoring and management processes, a
review of the following sections of your manual may be helpful.
Kerio MailServer monitoring
happens primarily through the Status section of the Administration
Console.
1.31 Status monitors and
logs
Kerio MailServer monitoring tools can help identify
bottlenecks and potential issues before they become critical. Let's begin
our review of status monitors and logs by logging onto WebMail and sending
a few messages using the example accounts your created so we'll have some
activity to monitor. Try sending some incorrectly addressed messages to
see the effect, e.g., nonexistantuser@somedomain.lab.
After you
have generated some activity, select the Status / Message Queue area of
the Administration Console. Click the "Refresh" button to get the
most current version of the queue. You may see some of your incorrectly
addressed messages stuck in the queue, e.g.:
| Queue ID |
Created |
Next Try |
Size |
| 409bd1ba-0000000c |
7 May 2004 11:13:14 |
7 May 2004 11:43:18 |
420 |
| From |
To |
Status |
| jsmith@ testdomain.lab |
nonexistantuser@ somedomain.lab |
4.4.1 Cannot connect to remote
host |
You can remove the message(s) from
the queue, try sending now, or run the queue.
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image
Go to the Logs / mail section of the Administration
Console to view the queue activity in detail.
You will also find
Message Queue, Active Connections, Traffic Charts, and Statistics
in the Status section which you can review.
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image
Active connections may show the Kerio Admin connected.
Traffic charts should show a few spikes of activity during the times you
sent your test messages. In the Traffic charts area you can view traffic
in terms of several parameters.
- Messages / Received
- Connections / SMTP
- Connections / POP
- Connections / IMAP
In addition to basic storage, message
transfer and connections, the Statistics section of the Administration
Console also analyzes antispam and antivirus filter activity.
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image
The Configuration / Services
section of the
Administration Console also provides a window into the activity of Kerio
MailServer. Kerio MailServer runs several services that can be stopped and
started, run automatically or manually, run from different or multiple ports, restrict concurrent connections
and accessed by different IP address groups. These services included the
following.
- SMTP and Secure SMTP
- POP3 and Secure POP3
- IMAP and Secure IMAP
- NNTP and Secure NNTP
- LDAP and Secure LDAP
- HTTP and Secure HTTP
Select Configuration / Services section
to see what services are running.
One security application example for changing the properties of a service is to restrict access to the HTTP
service only to the internal LAN IP addresses. Therefore sensitive information will not be cached on a public
machine if an enduser accesses WebMail from outside the network.
Now let's look again at the Logs
section of the Administration Console. Review the Logs
section of your manual to understand how to interpret log messages.
- The config log stores the complete history of communication between Kerio
Administration Console and Kerio MailServer Engine and all MailServer configuration changes made by each user.
- The debug log is a special log that allows detailed
monitoring of certain information designed especially for solving
problems.
- The error log displays errors of great significance
that usually affect mail server operation. Regular review of the error
log is recommended to try to eliminate problems found here. Typical
error messages may pertain to service initiation (usually due to port
conflicts), disk space allocation, antivirus check initialization, and
improper authentication of users.
- The mail log contains information about individual
messages processed by the mail server, for example, information that a
message is undeliverable, that it could not be delivered in the defined
time, and that the user sent a virus-infected message.
- The security log contains information related to
Kerio MailServer security and may include information on events relevant
to security such as found viruses and forbidden attachments,
unsuccessful login attempts (invalid login name/password, forbidden IP
address), attempts to misuse a server (unauthorized relaying),
anti-bombing (the protection against server overloading), detection of
sender in databases of forbidden servers (ORDB, SURBL, custom IP address
group), and antivirus subscription expiration.
- The spam log displays information about all spam emails stored in Kerio MailServer.
Information about individual spam messages are displayed in rows. The logs differ according to the mode of spam
detection. The Spam log lists also messages that have been marked as spam by Kerio MailServer, but the user marked
them as regular messages.
- Finally, the warning log displays warning messages
about errors of lesser significance, for example, that a user with
administrator rights has a blank password, that a user account of a
given name does not exist, or that a remote POP3 server is
inaccessible.
Now that you have a basic overview of
monitoring and logs in Kerio MailServer, consider some common mail server
management practices.
1.32 Event
scheduling
Event scheduling is an important feature in Kerio
MailServer that eases server management in the Configuration / Scheduling
section in the Administration Console.
You can add, edit and
remove scheduling events that include a time condition, action, and the
optional parameter to allow the action to establish dial-up connections if
necessary.
Let's try scheduling some events. Go to the
Configuration / Scheduling section in the Administration Console and click
the "Add..." button.
In the Scheduled Action dialog, define
an action called "Afternoon Queue Run" for a specified queue run to clear
out the queue during the usual afternoon lull in mail server activity.
Fill-out the dialog form as follows.
- Description: Afternoon Queue Run
- Valid only at time: checked
- Send messages from the outgoing queue:
checked
- Allow to establish Dial-Up connection if
necessary: checked
When we check the "Valid only at
time" we need to click the associated "Edit..." button to define a
time range for afternoon. When the Time Ranges dialog appears, click the
"Add..." button. Let's name our new time range "Lunchtime Lull" and
set it for 12:30pm to 1:00pm, Daily, Weekdays, for example.
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image
And as we reviewed in our discussion on status monitors,
you can also manage queue actions in the Status / Message Queue section of
the Administration Console where you can run the queue ad hoc, try sending
particular messages in the queue, and remove messages from the queue. Now
we are ready to consider archives and back-ups.
1.33 Archives and
back-ups
You can use the Configuration / Backup / Archiving section
of the Administration Console to enable archiving with several options
available for additional flexibility. Archiving can be enabled
for local, incoming, outgoing, and/or relayed messages. Archiving can be used to help comply with email
archiving regulations, or a quick way to restore an email by searching then forwarding the email.
Let's set up an example archive. Go to the
Configuration / Backup / Archiving section of the Administration Console and check
the "Enable mail archiving" check box. Assume for this example we want to
archive all types of messages, so keep the default settings, leaving the
Local messages, Incoming messages, Outgoing messages, and Relayed messages
check boxes checked.
There are 3 basic options to consider for
handling of the archiving function.
- Whether to archive messages before or after antivirus checks
- Whether to archive to a remote e-mail address (or addresses)
- Whether to archive to a local folder
For this example let's
choose to archive messages after antivirus checks and archive to a local
folder. Assuming we place a high priority on archiving, set the interval
used for creating new archive folders to "day". Given the archiving
frequency, check the "compress old archive folders" check box. You can
also select the user(s) or group(s) that have access to the archive
folders. For added security, let's just leave the "admin" default entry.
Back
to top...
Another important element of mail server
management is backing up your server. The backup feature creates a backup of the mail store, the mail server
configuration file and user configuration file while the MailServer is still running. This allows the MailServer to
continue email delivery and receival while the backup is running.
Let's set up a backup schedule in
the Configuration / Backup / Backup section of the Administration Console. Put a check next to "Enable
message store and configuration recovery backup". Specify a directory where you want to place your backup. The
backup directory can either be on a local drive or a network drive. Next select a backup schedule. You can choose
to perform up to three backups per week. To avoid mail peak hours select a time when email usage is low such as
midnight.
1.4 Summary
questions
The following chapter summary questions are for
review.
True/False
- The Action tab in the Configuration / Content Filter / Spam Filter section of the
Administration Console is for Blacklists tab as
well as the SPF tab. T / F
- A Kerio MailServer account cannot be managed through the Active
Directory interface. T / F
- 995 is the default port for POP3 SSL. T / F
- DIGEST-MD5 was superseded by CRAM-MD5 as the required mechanism for
LDAP v3 servers. T / F
- Kerio MailServer backups can be scheduled in the Configuration / Backup /
Archiving section of the Administration Console.
Answers
- T
- F
- T
- F
- F
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