NETmail PEX Messaging Security Usage Guide
The NETmail PEX service is an enterprise class, fully managed messaging security service which is located at the ISP border and hosted at 1-Net's Data Centre. PEX provides an Inbound SMTP Gateway service for messaging servers, filtering unwanted spam and viruses before forwarding valid emails to the messaging servers.
Messaging servers protected by PEX will experience absolute reduction in unwanted email traffic which results to more efficient use of server resources as well as bandwidth consumption.
Anti-Spam configuration preference can be customized at the user level allowing them to manage and decide their own anti-spam requirements. Each user has an account, a personal Quarantine Mailbox and access to a central web portal.
Server Details
Customers and users can access the NETmail PEX Email Quarantine service from the following server:
Welcome Message
Upon activation of the NETmail PEX service , you will receive a greeting message with a subject line of 1-Net PEX User Quarantine Account Information. The greeting message contains the following information:
Welcome to the NETmail PEX Messaging Security service. This message contains the information you will need to access your Spam Quarantine and Preferences.
Your account has been set to the following username and password:
Username: <your email address>
Password: <your default password>
Access your Spam Quarantine directly using the following link:
http://quarantine.netmail.sg
Quarantine Summary Report
The NETmail PEX service sends you a daily quarantine summary report so you can view the quarantined messages you did not receive. From the quarantine summary report you can also add messages to your whitelist, delete messages, and have messages delivered to your inbox.
The following figure shows an example of a quarantine summary report.
You can click the link at the bottom of the message to access to your quarantine interface to set preferences and classify messages.
Note: The quarantine message summary will be delivered only when there are new messages in your quarantine inbox at 3 p.m. (+8GMT)
Using the Quarantine Interface
At the end of every quarantine summary report is a link to the quarantine interface where you can set additional preferences and classify messages as spam and not spam.
To log into your quarantine interface:
Click the link provided at the bottom of the Quarantine Summary Report (displayed above).
Enter your username and password, and click Login.
Note: The site uses window pop-up. We recommend that you allow pop-ups from the quarantine.1-net-singapore.com domain.
The Get Mail Client Plugins Here link is for downloading the Outlook plugins. This topic will be covered in the later sections.
Quarantine Inbox
After logging into the quarantine interface, select the QUARANTINE INBOX tab to view a list of your quarantined messages. When you first start using the quarantine interface, you should view this list on a daily basis and classify as many messages as you can.
The NETmail PEX service has a learning engine that learns how to deal with future messages based on the ones you classify as spam and not spam. The learning engine becomes more effective over time as you teach the system how to classify messages and as you set up rules based on your whitelist and blacklist.
There are 5 different actions that can performed.
- Deliver
- Whitelist
- Delete
- Classify as Spam
- Classify as Not Spam
To perform the action on multiple messages, use the checkboxes on the left of each message before clicking one of the 5 buttons at the top. To perform the action on single messages, you can use the colored links on the right of each message. The following summarize the various actions.
Deliver
Delivers the selected message to your standard email inbox.
Note: If you want to classify a message or add it to your whitelist, make sure to do so before delivering the message to your inbox. Once NETmail PEX delivers a message, it is removed from your quarantine list.
Whitelist
Adds the selected message to your whitelist so all future emails from this sender are not quarantined unless the message contains a virus or banned attachment type. NETmail PEX adds the sending email address exactly as it appears in the message to your personal whitelist.
Delete
Deletes the selected message from your quarantine list. The main reason to delete messages is to help you keep track of which quarantine messages you have reviewed. You cannot recover messages you have deleted.
Classify as Not Spam
Classifies the selected message as not spam.
Note: Some bulk commercial email may be considered useful by some users and spam by others. Instead of classifying bulk commercial email, it may be more effective to add it to your whitelist (if you wish to receive such messages) or blacklist (if you prefer not to receive them).
Classify as Spam
Classifies the selected message as spam.
Preferences - Whitelist / Blacklist
Selecting the Preferences tab allows you to manage how the NETmail PEX service handles your messaging security.
Whitelist
Add any email senders to whitelist. This list of senders are not blocked even if the message matches spam rules. Virus scanning and Banned Attachment blocking are still applied. Whitelisting may be performed by full email address ("user@netmail.sg"), domain only ("netmail.sg"), or domain portion ("sg").
Blacklist
Add any email senders to blacklist. This list of senders are blocked, regardless of content, unless a whitelist entry is also present. Blocking may be performed by full email address ("user@ netmail.sg "), domain only ("netmail.sg "), or domain portion ("sg").
- For both the Whitelist and Blacklist, if you enter a full email address, such as johndoe@netmail.sg, just that user is specified. If you enter just a domain, such as netmail.sg, then all users from the domain "netmail.sg" are specified.
- If you enter a domain such as netmail.sg, all subdomains are also included, such as support.netmail.sg and test.netmail.sg.
Quarantine Notification
Quarantine Notification controls how often a status email is sent to notify you of messages in your quarantine. The recommended Default is Daily.
By default, Quarantine Notification Address will be automatically set to your email address. You may change the address if required.
Changing the Language of the Quarantine Interface
You can change the language of your quarantine interface by selecting a language from the drop-down menu in the upper right corner of the QUARANTINE INBOX and PREFERENCES tabs.
Supported languages include Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, and others. The language you select is only applied to your individual quarantine interface. No other user's interface is affected.
Using Microsoft Outlook to Classify Messages
Instead of using your quarantine inbox to classify your email messages, you can download a client plugin that lets you classify messages from your Microsoft Outlook application.
The plugin can be downloaded from the link at the bottom of the login page.
After downloading and installing the plug-in, you can begin classifying messages using these buttons in your Microsoft Outlook client.
The first (green) button marks messages as not spam and the second (red) button marks messages as spam.
The Microsoft Outlook Plug-in is configured to automatically:
- Whitelist email addresses associated with sent messages and new contacts
- Move spam-declared messages to the Deleted Items folder in your mail client
- Whitelist the 'From:' email address within 'Not-Spam'-declared messages.
You can change the default behavior of the Outlook plug-in by going to the Tools menu in your Outlook client and selecting Options | Spam Firewall tab.
