Blocking Inbound Mail Connections
You can prevent Mail service from receiving inbound mail from external servers.
You might do this to isolate a problem or to prevent conflicts with another Mail service running on your network. You might also do this to stop virus propagation or a spam relay originating from external servers.
Blocking inbound mail isn’t the same thing as disabling SMTP service. Disabling prevents queued mail from being sent out, but blocking inbound mail stops accepting connections to add mail to the queue. Attempted mail deliveries are bounced and returned to the sender.
To block inbound connections:
1In Server Admin, select a computer in the Servers list, then select Mail.
2Click Settings.
3Select the General tab.
4Deselect Allow Incoming Mail.
5Click Save.
Allowing Administrator Access to Mail Folders
You can configure IMAP to allow the server administrator to view the Mail service hierarchy. Administrators cannot view mail itself; they can only view user folder locations.
When you connect as the IMAP administrator, you see user mail folders stored on the server. Each user’s mailbox appears as a separate folder in your mail client. You can remove inactive mailbox folders that belong to deleted user accounts.
For more information, see the man page for imapd.conf.
Creating an Administration Account
You might want to create a separate mail administrator account to maintain and watch mail folders, remove defunct user accounts, and archive mail. This administrator account doesn’t need to be a server administrator. Also, this administrator account shouldn’t receive mail. It isn’t a normal mail account.
To create a mail administrator account:
1Designate a user to be mail administrator.
You can create a new user in System Preferences > Accounts if you don’t want to use an existing user.
2Open /etc/imapd.conf in a text editor.
If you aren’t comfortable using a
Chapter 4 Monitoring and Maintaining Mail Service
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