NU-Mail is a post office program that enables organisations to send and receive Electronic Mail across the Internet. It puts E-Mail services onto the desktop workstations of individuals within an organisation enabling them to communicate via the Internet with any other individual or organisation that is part of the Internet E-Mail network.
Additionally it allows users on the same network to exchange messages with each other and users located on different networks within the same organisation (local and remote).
NU-Mail works with any standard SMTP/POP3 E-Mail client software (Windows messaging, Eudora, Pegasus, Outlook Express, Outlook etc). Multiple installations of NU-Mail can be configured to sort and exchange messages between themselves enabling distributed E-Mail systems to be easily implemented (e.g. Head Office & branches, multiple seperate business sites etc).
The NU-Mail Gateway is located on a computer that is part of a Local Area Network (LAN). Messages arrive at the Gateway when sent by users or when collected, by NU-Mail, from the Internet/Intranet. The recipient address is examined to determine whether it refers to a user on the local network. Messages with local addresses are posted into the recipients mail box for subsequent collection by the user. All other messages are forwarded onto the Internet, Intranet or another instance of NU-Mail for onward delivery.
There are two versions of NU-Mail available - Standard and Professional.
NU-Mail is an Internet E-Mail Gateway enabling messages to be routed to and from remote networks. In its simplest form it enables individual users of a small company network to send and receive E-Mail to/from the Internet (each individual user having their own unique Internet E-Mail address within the company). In its more sophisticated form it enables the set up of distributed E-Mail systems that operate across multiple separate networks.
NU-Mail enables the following:
Users on a single LAN communicating via Internet E-mail with remote computer users.
In the above case:
The case below demonstrates three separate LANs (e.g head office and two branches) using NU-Mail to set up a corporate E-Mail system.
In the above case:
NU-Mail comprises the following components:
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is an Internet standard for transferring messages from one system to another. It is the main protocol used for moving E-Mail around the Internet and enables computer systems of differing makes and types to communicate with each other (e.g. Microsoft Windows machines can send and recieve messages to/from Unix systems). Most desktop Internet E-Mail clients use SMTP to send mail (e.g. Windows Messaging, Pegasus Mail, Eudora, Microsoft Outlook etc). SMTP is normally used for sending/forwarding messages to the Internet or another network.
Post Office Protocol 3 is an Internet standard for collecting E-Mail from a message store. It is the main protocol used by desktop Internet E-Mail clients for retrieving messages (see example list above for list of E-Mail clients that support POP3) from a suitable message store (i.e. a POP3 server). The protocol enables messages to be retrieved from a diverse variety of host systems (e.g. A windows workstation can collect mail from a Unix server).
The diagram below details the main components of NU-Mail and how messages flow between these components.
The SMTP server receives messages using SMTP.(e.g. from a desktop E-Mail client, another instance of NU-Mail or any other program/system capable of sending messages using SMTP). Each message received is passed to the Message Router for onward processing.
The POP3 server enables suitable clients (e.g. A desktop Internet E-Mail client or another instance of NU-Mail) to collect messages from the NU-Mail message store.
The SMTP client enables NU-Mail to forward messages onto other SMTP servers (e.g. another instance of NU-Mail or an ISP (Internet Service Provider) on the internet).
The POP3 client enables NU-Mail to collect messages from a POP3 server (e.g. another instance of NU-Mail or an ISP on the Internet). Messages collected by the POP3 client are passed to the Message Router for further processing.
The Dialer enables NU-Mail to periodically connect to another computer system (e.g. an ISP or any other network) using Windows Dial Up Networking (DUN). Once connected NU-Mail can send and collect messages from the remote system using it's SMTP and POP3 clients.
The Message Store holds messages that are awaiting collection by a POP3 E-Mail client or queued for forwarding to another SMTP server.
The Message Router processes messages received by NU-Mail and, using a set of message routing rules, determines whether they are stored in a local mailbox (POP3), forwarded onto an SMTP server, forwarded onto another E-Mail address or deleted (i.e. SPAM). The rules control how each message is processed and control the entire movement of a message through the system.
The Scheduler controls what processes are running and when they are run. Typically the scheduler will start/stop the SMTP/POP3 servers that provide the local mail service and make connections to remote systems (e.g. an ISP or the remote network) to forward outgoing messages and collect incoming messages. It also enables the scheduling of periodic backups of the Message Store and when the Remote Maintenance Server is available.
The Backup Agent compresses the Message Store and makes a copy of it in another location (usually somewhere on your main system backup path).
The Remote Maintenance Server enables the monitoring and maintenance of NU-Mail from any computer that can establish a TCP network connection to the system hosting the Gateway. This also enables users to configure their own POP3 mail boxes - using this they can change their password and set up message redirection.
NU-Mail is shipped in two different versions:
The Standard Version is designed for use on a single network that sends and receives messages via a single dial up account with an Internet Service provider (ISP). The configuration of this version is straight forward and well within the capabilities of anyone who understands the basics of Internet E-Mail and Windows networking.
The Professional Version is designed to be used when any of the following are required:
The configuration of this version is more complex and requires a good understanding of the Internet E-Mail protocols and networking.
This is the same as the Professional Version but the POP3 and SMTP servers will only accept incoming connections on the local IP Address (127.0.0.1). It is designed to enable an e-mail domain to be hosted on single machine yet still provide such features as auto responders, multiple addresses within the domain, mailing lists, message redirection and spam elimination.
To run NU-Mail you will need to satisfy the following:
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