mailvault configuration

July 16, 2022

Filter between Active and Suspended users (GWS & M365); optionally disable older versions of TLS and other stuff

MailVault v5.0.6 is available.

This release contains:

Segregate between active and suspended users for Google Workspace & Microsoft 365
Email accounts in GWS and M365 mail sources made much more responsive
Ability to disable older versions of TLS, to enforce greater security
Improved validation for SSL certificates
Internal enhancements in the cloud storage sub-system
Other minor fixes and enhancements

For companies using Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, the ability to filter between active and suspended users makes it convenient to segregate users as needed. Additionally, we have enhanced the email account management in the GWS and M365 mail sources, so even if you are working with thousands of users, MailVault will offer you an extremely responsive user experience.

For maximum operability, MailVault supports multiple versions of the Transport Layer Security protocol. However, some of our customers have security policies that prohibit the use of older versions of TLS. With this release, the admin can turn-off older versions of TLS if needed, thus enhancing security.

When SSL certificates are used with MailVault, the validation process is now friendlier and easier.

The cloud storage sub-system has some internal working improvements.

A few other minor fixes and enhancements complete this release.

You can manually upgrade your MailVault installation by going to:

Settings > Core > Auto updates and click on Check for updates

Then simply follow the on-screen instructions.

June 20, 2022

by sharad

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Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for MailVault

MailVault v5.0.5 is available.

This release contains:

Support for two-factor authentication (2FA)
Enhanced the workflow for remote authentication
Enhanced the workflow for bulk-user import
Improved responsiveness of the web UI
Other minor fixes and enhancements

2FA adds an additional layer of security to MailVault users and can be used with both static, as well as remote authentication (SSO).

MailVault now allows the admin to centrally create remote authentication and user import endpoints, which can then be utilized as needed. Simpler and more convenient.

Work has also been done to improve the responsiveness of the web UI in response to user actions; in general, users should experience snappier performance while using MailVault.

Lastly, the usual minor fixes and enhancements.

You can manually upgrade your MailVault installation by going to:

Settings > Core > Auto updates and click on Check for updates

Then simply follow the on-screen instructions.

August 11, 2021

by sharad

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MailVault v4, last release. Get ready for v5…

MailVault v4.3.20 is available.

This is perhaps the last release in the v4 series.

Besides containing some fixes and enhancements, more importantly, it prepares your current installation – there are core internal changes – for the upcoming v5 series.

You can manually upgrade your MailVault installation by going to:

Settings > Core > Auto updates and click on Check for updates

Then simply follow the on-screen instructions.

December 29, 2020

by sharad

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Additional self-service controls, faster restore from cloud storage

MailVault v4.3.18 is available.

This release contains:

Controls to allow self-service for end users – to restore and forward email
Skystore – restoring mail from cloud storage is now much faster
Usernames and email addresses can now contain some characters not allowed previously
Minor fixes and enhancements

Based on feedback from some of our customers, we have enhanced self-controls that administrators can apply for end users. You can now allow or disallow users to forward or restore their own email.

For on-premise user’s of MailVault, it’s SkyStore functionality allows you to save a copy of your archived email in the cloud securely, while keeping a complete or partial (to save on local storage requirements) backup locally. This release speeds up restoring email from the cloud – significantly.

You can manually upgrade your MailVault installation by going to:

Settings > Core > Auto updates and click on Check for updates

Then simply follow the on-screen instructions.

February 26, 2018

by sharad

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MailVault supports Single-Sign-On for Office 365

MailVault v4.2.35 is available.

This release contains:

Single-Sign-On support for Office 365
Enhanced auto-recovery in case of configuration corruption
Other minor fixes and enhancements

Organizations using MailVault to backup and archive email from Office 365, can now allow their users to single-sign-on by authentication against O365. And user management is made simpler by allowing MailVault to directly import users from O365.

Power failures, disk crashes and even user-errors can sometimes cause file corruption. When configuration files get corrupted, they affect the running of the software. In such cases, MailVault auto-recovers to older, working configurations. This release enhances the auto-recovery process to give you an even more robust working environment.

You can manually upgrade your MailVault installation by going to:

Settings > Core > Auto updates and click on Check for updates

Then simply follow the on-screen instructions.

June 27, 2015

by sharad

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Release: MailVault v4.1.18 (Mailbox view, license management, web console)

MailVault v4.1.18 is available.

This release contains:

Preference based “mailbox view”, when user logs in to MailVault
License management now has it’s own primary tab
Auto-pause and scroll in the web console
Minor fixes and enhancements

Users can choose to let MailVault display all their messages (most recent first) when they log in, very much like popular web mail interfaces.

License management has been moved out of the core settings into it’s own top-level tab, on the main navigation bar, making it more visible and easily accessible.

The real-time web console now automatically pauses the scrolling messages to allow for easier reading when the admin accesses it.

You can upgrade your MailVault installation by going to:

Settings > Core > Auto updates and click on Check for updates

Then simply follow the on-screen instructions.

November 12, 2013

by sharad

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Release: MailVault v3.4.17

MailVault v3.4.17 is available.

This release modifies and enhances the sub-admin role.

A sub-admin is no longer allowed to delete messages. Additionally, we have introduced a number of privileges, that may optionally be granted to a sub-admin. This adds to overall security, offers greater flexibility to accommodate various organizations policies and overall makes the sub-admin role more convenient.

You can upgrade your MailVault installation by going to:

Settings > Core > Auto updates and click on Check for updates

Then simply follow the on-screen instructions.

June 23, 2010

by sharad

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How to backup and archive email into MailVault

MailVault can backup and archive email in a number of ways.

It can “pull” mail from corporate mail servers and public mail servers, parse multiple mailbox formats, pick up randomly scattered mail from the filesystem and read messages from selected email clients. MailVault can also accept email “pushed” to it via the SMTP protocol.

In cases where there is no mail server running, the MailVault Agent installed on remote machines enables users to backup email from their email clients into MailVault.

Mail sources in MailVault

For those familiar with email, MailVault’s capabilities include:

Support for network oriented protocols like POP3, IMAP and SMTP thus ensuring connectivity with any standard corporate email server (Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, Postfix, Qmail, Sendmail, PostMaster, MDaemon, VPOP3, etc.)
Support for filesystem based mail sources like Unix mbox, Maildir, regular directories with individual email files (.eml / standard RFC 822 format)
Convenient wrappers for public email proividers like GMail, Yahoo, Rediffmail
Can read email from email clients like Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail and Thunderbird

Types of Mail Sources

Inspite of all this power and flexibility, using MailVault is quite simple. Let’s look at setting up a mail source.

Configuring a mail source (Generic steps)

For the MailVault administrator, setting up a mail source simply boils down to the following generic steps:

Go to Settings > Mail Sources
To add a new mail source, click “Add new”
From the drop down list, choose a mail source and press “Create”
Configure the mail source specific settings
Press Test to check if the settings are correct
If all is well, press Save

That’s it. MailVault now begins the backup and archive process.

Configuring a POP3 mail source

Most email servers support copying or journaling all email that flows through them into a mailbox, which is POP3 enabled. MailVault can then periodically pickup email from this ‘archive’ mailbox using the POP3 protocol. This makes the POP3 mail source one of the most popular and recommended ways of using MailVault with your mail server. Let’s see how a POP3mail source is configured.

Go to Settings > Mail Sources
Click on Add new
Choose POP3 from the drop down

Configuring a POP3 mail source

With reference to the image above:

Make the name an easy identifier (espcially if you are going to use multiple mail sources)
Ensure the mail source is enabled (default is ON)
We’d like to delete messages from the POP3 box once retrieved into MailVault
Poll the mail source every 10 minutes
Enter the POP3 mailbox username
Enter the POP3 mailbox password
Provide the host name
Check the port is correct (default is 110)

As a good practice, at this point we recommend highly that you press the Test button. Ensure that you get a “Connection successful” message and then save the mail source.

Get a cup of coffee, sit back and relax while MailVault archives your email… 🙂

April 2, 2010

by sharad

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User Management in MailVault

Generally speaking, user administration tasks can be time consuming, dull and often a waste of your technical administrator’s time. User management in MailVault is designed to change that.

A bunch of convenience features make life easy for the administrators and end-user self-service options means that your user’s can get things done, without waiting for a busy administrator to attend to them.

Understanding user roles
There are three types of users in MailVault. A user type, technically known as “Role” defines privileges and what a user is able to do in the MailVault system. There are three types of roles:

User
Reviewer
Admin

The User role is what most end-users will be. Their actions are restricted to only their own mail, i.e. email in which they are either a sender or recipient. They can search through their email, forward and even restore it – all without admin intervention.

The Reviewer role can do everything that a User can, with the additional privilege of being able to search through all email in the MailVault archive. This role is primarily meant for personnel with email auditing responsibilities.

The Admin role can of course do everything that User and Reviewer can – additionally it allows for administration of MailVault.

Adding users

Users can be added singly or in bulk.

While adding a single user, the admin can specify the password in the conventional manual style or simply choose the Auto option to have MailVault send a self-activation email to the user. End of story. Each user must have a primary email id that is unique across all other users. Additionally, users may also have optional secondary email ids.

Bulk users can be imported into MailVault from various sources including CSV files, Active Directory and LDAP. MailVault can also import user’s directly from the popular PostMaster email server.

Welcome mail
An option welcome mail can be sent to user’s automatically when they are added to MailVault. This mail can carry a custom message and is a perfect way to inform employees about corporate email archiving policies, etc.

User list
The user list allows for listing, searching and modifying users. You can also export all MailVault users in a CSV format for use elsewhere.

And those are the basics of user management in MailVault.

August 6, 2009

by sharad

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First steps after installing MailVault

There is a book that goes by the name of “What to say, after saying Hello” (or something like that!). A WHOLE BOOK? I guess human beings are complex creatures.

Fortunately, interacting with MailVault isn’t anywhere near as complex. Inspite of all it’s power and flexibility, it is simple to use. For a new setup, on-screen instructions and hints guide through the few basic steps required to get going.

Here is the 1-2-3-4 of configuring MailVault once you’ve installed it.

Logging in

The preset username and password for MailVault is “admin” and “password”. A notice on the login page displays these details and will stay visible on the login page until the admin password is changed.

MailVault Login Screen

Needless to say, it is strongly recommended to change the admin password at the earliest.

Basic configuration

On logging in, the main page (which happens to be the Search page) of the application is displayed. Obviously there is no point in executing a Search right now… 🙂

In the area under the search box, are listed the recommended steps for completing the basic configuration. As you complete each one, the line turns from blue to grey.

MailVault Basic Configuration

Let’s take them in order:

1. Admin’s email id

Specify a valid email-id for the administrator. This will be used as the sender email-id for mail originating from MailVault (alerts, search result forwarding, etc.). Additionally, in case you forget your password, this will be needed to reset your password.

To set the email id, go to Users > User list and edit the Administrator entry.

2. SMTP relay server

MailVault needs a SMTP server through which it can relay mail. Normally this will be your corporate email server.

To set this, go to Settings > Outbound email and fill the relevant information.

3. Your domains

These are used to identify your corporate email from other external mail and can be set at Settings > Core > My domains.

4. Mail sources

MailVault acquires mail using mail sources. Many types of mail sources are supported, but the most commonly used one is POP3.

Head over to Settings > Mail Sources > Retrieve mail from and click on “Add new”.

Once all of these items are configured, MailVault will no longer display these hints on the main Search page.

Basically that’s it. MailVault will now begin the process of archiving your email.

Other stuff

Now while MailVault does it’s stuff you can go ahead and do other things – like adding some users. Feel free to wander through the various settings and check out the available options. If you don’t feel the need to tinker or customize, no worries – most settings in MailVault have sane default values.

All Settings pages have a “guidelines area” on the right hand side which informs you about the purpose of the page’s settings. Additionally, every setting section on a page has it’s own little “help line” at it’s bottom.

Finally, if you really need to you, can request assistance online at the MailVault site; but we assure you, you won’t need an entire book on what to do after installing MailVault! 🙂

Feel free to tell us about things you liked, didn’t like and how we can make your MailVault experience even better…