MailArchiva Frequently Asked Questions

Which Mail Servers are currently supported?

MS Exchange 2000, 2003, 2007. Postfix. Sendmail. IPSwitch IMail. The AXIGen Mail Server. Qmail. Lotus Domino Exim Communigate Pr, Java Sun Messaging Server, and many others.

Note:The MailArchiva email archiving system incorporates an SMTP server, so there is a good chance you will be able to get it working with your favourite mail server.

What operating systems are supported?

Currently, Windows, Linux and OpenSolaris builds are formally available. However, we have a number of people running the MailArchiva email archive server on Mac OS X, AIX and Berkley BSD. Essentially, you can run the MailArchiva email archiver on any platform for which there is a Java 1.6 Runtime Environment.

For those customers running on 2000 mailboxes or more, we do recommend installing the MailArchiva email archiving solution on a 64 bit operating system so that a larger amount of RAM can be allocated to the server. See OutOfMemory

On Windows, please ensure that you are using NTFS and not FAT/FAT32.

What is the most common configuration problem?

The email archiving server has not been allocated enough RAM. See: OutOfMemory for instructions on how to allocate additional RAM.

What hardware do I need to purchase?

How long is a piece of string? It depends on the rate of mail flow in your organization. No seriously, we can provide you with a spreadsheet that will assist you choosing the appropriate hardware.

Does the email archiving server software have to sit on the exchange server? Can it be on a separate network?

The MailArchiva email archiving software can run anywhere on your network provided it has TCP/IP connectivity to your mail servers and the appropriate firewall ports are open.

Does the MailArchiva email archive server support Network Attached Storage (NAS) or Storage Area Netwok (SAN) devices?

Yes. the MailArchiva email archiving system has been tested thoroughly with a wide range of NAS and SAN devices. Though, from our personal experience, for improved reliability its better to use hard drives connected directly to the email archiving server. What we find is that these storage devices just serve to create an additional point of failure.

How is the MailArchiva email archiving software actually priced?

The Enterprise Edition is priced on a per mailbox basis. The larger the number of mailboxes, the lower the price per mailbox.

How do I determine the number of mailboxes to order?

The MailArchiva licensing system only cares about how many mailboxes you are archiving mails for within the period of a year. Thus, if your company has a high turnover rate, the number of mailboxes you need to order will be unaffected.

We recommend you order, at minimum, the same number of mailboxes as is configured in your mail server. You should also order additional mailboxes so that the email archiving system will continue running as your business expands.

How do I place an order for the Enterprise Edition?

Fill in the quotation form here: http://www.stimulussoft.com/ordering_pricing.htm You will receive formalized quote for the software in your inbox within a matter of a few minutes. Thereafter, forward your quote to accounts@stimulussoft.com or just send an email with the specific number of mailboxes you require.

What payment methods do you accept?

We accept: payment orders, checks, visa/master card/american express credit card payments and wire transfers.

What happens if I go over my licensed mailbox limit?

The email archiving process may stop when your limit is reached. You will be able to access all previously archived emails, however.

How do I upgrade my license to support more mailboxes?

Please contact us at info@mailarchiva.com.

Any compatibility issues with exchange 2007?

The MailArchiva Enterprise Edition product is 100% compatible with Microsoft Exchange.

MailArchiva Enterprise Edition supports Microsoft Exchange Envelope Journalling. To be precise, it knows how to index and display Microsoft Exchange 2000/2003/2007 envelope journalled messages.

MailArchiva Open Source Edition will still archive Exchange 2007 emails, but those emails will not be indexed correctly and displayed correctly when viewed.

I thought the Open Source Edition supports archiving of multiple mailboxes, yet I can only see one place where a mailbox is defined?

The mailbox definition in MailArchiva is used to connect to a journal account in Microsoft Exchange and not individual mailboxes. MS Exchange has the capability to forward all incoming, outgoing and internal emails to a journal account. To archive all emails in an organization, you would simply enter the login information of the journal mailbox in the mailbox definition. The MailArchiva email archiving system will then retrieve all emails from the journal account and delete them once they have been received so as not to jam up the mail server. The Enterprise Edition supports the configuration of multiple "mailboxes" as it is designed to work with more than one Exchange servers and Exchange stores. Thus, it can retrieve emails from more than one journal account.

I am using the Open Source Edition. When I view a message, I see the Microsoft Exchange envelope body and not the actual message. Why is this?

It would appear you have Envelope Journalling enabled. The OSE archive server displays raw email messages and does not recognize MS Exchange envelopes. The Enterprise Edition product will display the original message as one would expect. The EE product also knows how to index envelope fields correctly.

Does MailArchiva support NT Domain Controllers?

The web console will authenticate users against ActiveDirectory or using a built-in authentication mechanism. If you are using NTLM authentication, you will need to use the built in authentication mechanism.

Can MailArchiva be used in large scale deployments?

Yes. Unlike most other email archiving systems, MailArchiva uses search engine rather than database technology to perform efficient search queries. Search engines are specifically designed for searching huge data sets, while databases are not. Furthermore, MailArchiva is one of (if not, the only!) email archiving products on the market that support distributed search. Thus, you can literally add additional servers to speed up your search queries.

Are there any restore functions for emails in the email archive?

Yes, MailArchiva Enterprise Edition includes a email restoration capability. You simply need to enter your Mail Server's SMTP server in the General tab and then choose the messages you want restored in the Search screen and click the replay/restore icon. Alternatively, we can provide a email recovery utility to restore all emails in the entire archive to your mail server.

What happens in case where MailArchiva cannot poll emails from our Exchange Server? E.g. port doesn't work anymore, imap server is down, Exchange is down, etc. Is there a way to get alerted automatically by MailArchiva that something is wrong?

Yes. You can configure the MailArchiva Enteprise Edition email archiving server to send out regular emails containing system status and diagnostics information. You will clearly see if there is a problem with the server and whether something needs to be addressed.

Does MailArchiva support multiple domains?

The short answer. Yes. The long answer. Yes.

Can MailArchiva support multi-customer scenarios?

Absolutely. We have specialized scripts available that allow one to deploy several MailArchiva instances on one machine with minimal resource overhead. Please contact us to inquire about our ISP offering.

MailArchiva only processes 1000 messages, when I attempt to export, send, view and delete messages. Why?

Please edit your server.conf file located at

C:\Program Files\MailArchiva\Server\webapps\mailarchiva\WEB-INF\conf\server.conf (Windows)

/usr/local/mailarchiva/server/webapps/mailarchiva/WEB-INF/conf/server.conf (Linux)

Edit the following properties:

export.max.messages=100000

view.max.messages=1000000

delete.max.messages=1000000

send.max.messages=1000000

How do I upgrade from the OSE to Enterprise Edition?

The OSE and EE versions are 100% compatible. Just run the EE email archive server setup and it should be upgraded automatically. If you are running a very old verson of the OSE, you may need to complete some additional steps, but we can guide you through the process as you go along.

How can I configure MailArchiva to archive to a remote drive?

In the Windows version of MailArchiva, you can simplify specific the UNC path of the remote drive when entering store information (e.g. \\server\store\store0). Before you can do this, you need to ensure that the MailArchiva service is running under an administrator account.

From the Services Control Panel applet (not the MailArchiva task tray icon configuration!), select the service, right click, select Properties, select Logon Tab, enter your Administrator account login account details, save and restart the MailArchiva server.

In the Volumes tab of the MailArchiva configuration, click add new volume. Enter the UNC network path as the store directory (e.g. \\server\store\store0).

See CannotCreateVolume for more information.

In UNIX versions of MailArchiva, first define a mount point to the NAS in your /etc/fstab file:

a. smbfs

//192.14.12.122/archive mnt/archive smbfs username=admin,password=pw

b. nfs

192.14.12.122:/archive mnt/archive nfs

Thereafter, when specifying your store path, simply enter /mnt/archive/store0 as the store path.

Note: For performance reasons, the index should be stored local to the machine.

How can I configure the MailArchiva email archiving server to authenticate with Windows 2008 Server?

When atttempting to authenticate against a Windows 2008 server, you might receive the message "no support for encryption type" or something equivalent. Create a file called krb5.conf with the following:

[libdefaults]
ticket_lifetime = 24000
default_realm = HOSTING.LOCAL
default_tkt_enctypes = des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc
default_tgs_enctypes = des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc

[realms]
HOSTING.LOCAL = {
kdc = AD-HOSTING-PRI.HOSTING.LOCAL
admin_server = AD-HOSTING-PRI.HOSTING.LOCAL
default_domain = HOSTING.LOCAL
}
[domain_realm]
.HOSTING.LOCAL = HOSTING.LOCAL
HOSTING.LOCAL = HOSTING.LOCAL

Save the krb5.conf in /usr/local/mailarchiva/server/webapps/mailarchiva/WEB-INF/conf (Linux) c:\Program Files\MailArchiva\Server\webapps\mailarchiva\server\WEB-INF\conf (Windows)

Explanation: For some reason, Java's kerberos libraries cannot interoperate with Windows 2008 server when AES is selected. The above krb5.conf file forces kerberos to use the 3DES alternative and not AES.

Can I configure MailArchiva to authenticate against multiple domains?

For multi-domain configuration, we will need to specify a krb5.conf file.

This file must be located in:

/usr/local/mailarchiva/server/webapps/mailarchiva/WEB-INF/conf (Linux)

c:\Program Files\MailArchiva\Server\webapps\mailarchiva\server\WEB-INF\conf (Windows)

Once this file exists, the kerberos settings in the MailArchiva GUI are overrided (LDAP settings still apply).

krb5.conf is a standard Kerberos configuration file that allows for a high degree of granularity in specification. This file is a well known format that is covered extensively in many Kerberos references on the web.

Here is an example of the contents of this file:

[realms]
MYUNIXREALM.NET = {
kdc = krb5-master.whatever.com
admin_server = krb5-master.whatever.com.kntr
}

MYADDOMAIN.WHATEVER.COM = {
kdc = addomain.whatever.com:88
admin_server = addomain.whatever.com:464
default_domain = addomain.whatever.com
}

[domain_realm]
addomain.whatever.com = MYADDOMAIN.WHATEVER.COM
.addomain.whatever.com = MYADDOMAIN.WHATEVER.COM
.myunixrealm.whatever.net = MYUNIXREALM.NET
myunixrealm.whatever.net = MYUNIXREALM.NET

[logging]
default = file:/var/log/krb5libs.log
kdc = file:/var/log/krb5kdc.log
admin_server = file:/var/log/kadmind.log

[libdefaults]
 default_realm = MYADDOMAIN.WHATEVER.COM
 default_tkt_enctypes = aes256-cts aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96 aes128-cts des3-cbc-sha1 rc4-hmac arcfour-hmac-md5 des-cbc-md5 des-cbc-crc
 default_tgs_enctypes = aes256-cts aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96 aes128-cts des3-cbc-sha1 rc4-hmac arcfour-hmac-md5 des-cbc-md5 des-cbc-crc
 permitted_enctypes = aes256-cts aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96 rc4-hmac arcfour-hmac-md5

Here is a useful guide on how to specify the krb5.conf file.

My active volume wont close or my volume is shown as EJECTED when it should not?

You are likely using a remote drive and have a permissions issue. See: WindowsPermisions for more information.

How do I add an volume to my new email archiving system?

(1) Make sure you are using the same server.conf file as was used in the email archiving system where the old volume was created (otherwise you may find yourself in the CannotAccessVolume situation).

(2) Click add volume and enter the store and index path of your existing volume. The volume should be recognised and searchable. If it is not, refer to CannotAccessVolume for more information on how to proceed.

I cannot access emails in my old volume. How do I correct this?

See this topic: CannotAccessVolume

On Windows, when I add a new volume that refers to a network drive, the volume is listed as EJECTED.

See this topic: CannotCreateVolume

Why do I receive different results when I search based on archive, received and sent dates?

Sent date = sent date field inside an email (stamped by the user's mail client)

Received date = received date field inside an email (stamped by the recipient's mail server)

Archive date = archive date timestamp added by mailarchiva during archival

The thing to remember is that MailArchiva is not a mail client - it is intercepting messages!

When you search for emails using sent date, received date and archive date, the search results may be different in that:

• there may be a different number of results

• some emails may appear in one result but not in another

• the ordering may be different

for the following reasons:

• an archived email may not have the received date timestamp since at the time the email was intercepted by MailArchiva it had not been received by the recipient yet.

• the email may not have a sent date since it may not have been sent yet (i.e. it could be an imported email that was saved but not sent)

• the sent date is stamped by the sender's email client (it is therefore, unreliable since the time on the user's computer could be out)

• the archive date is really the only reliable date since it is generated by the archiving server. If you search through writing service on archive date, you should have access to all emails.

• the ordering will be different since in each of the different searches, the results will be sorted according to that particular date type

That is why we recommend searching on archive date if possible. Obviously, if you are doing an import of old emails the archive date will not will be far off from their sent/received dates, and could well appear after new emails that were just archived.

Why can't I see the old messages I just imported?

Note: The search from and to dates default to the last three months only. Please alter the from and to dates. Also, sent the date type to archive date.

I just completed an import using Ex2MailArchiva, but the document counts don't match up. Why?

When measuring the doc count on the server, its never a good idea to rely on the max result search items in the search display since as explained earlier the results will be different depending on whether you are searching using archive date, receive date or sent date. Also, the max search result is capped by the settings in the general tab. Secondly, since the server stores two or more of the same messages only once, the amount of documents in your volume will typically be much less than reported in the ex2mailarchiva utility.

It seems, MailArchiva wont archive more than 10,000 messages?

You are confusing the max no. messages in the search output, with the number of archived messages. The total number of messages archived is shown in the Doc Count field volumes section. This is different to the maximum number of messages displayed in the search results, which is limited by the setting in the General tab. In other words, all messages will be archived, the search result, by default only displays the first 10000 of them.

What license is the Open Source Edition licensed under?

GPL v3.0 See: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.htm

When opening an .EML message in MailArchiva, Outlook Express is opened and not Outlook. How do I fix this?

To resolve, apply the registry fix in the attached eml.zip file.

What's the difference between stemming and precise indexing methods?

e.g. The stem of "running" will be "run". So with stemming enabled, MailArchiva will index "run" and not "running". When searching, if a search for "run" is made, the message containing "running" will appear. This is not the case when the precise indexing method is enabled. For precise, you need to enter "running". The reason why precise is enabled by default (1) auditor tends to want precise searching for compliance (2) when defining retention rules, you want MA to be sure not to delete emails that do not exactly match the specified criteria. If you do not plan to define specific retention rules and you desire stemming, then by all means enable it and reindex.

What search performance can we expect from MailArchiva?

MailArchiva EE v2.1 offers vastly superior search performance to all previous versions. Here are the stats:

Indexed Docs: 7.2M emails
Index Size: 24 GB (non optimized)
Search Speed: 0.06 - 0.09 seconds (with sort YYMMHHSS date)

Index stored on 4 SAS HDD hitachi RAID 10
16G RAM
2x Xeon 4 core 2.4Gz
OS FreeBSD 7.2
Filesystem UFS2 gjournal

What archiving performance can we expect from MailArchiva?

Using the SMTP archiving, the server archives around 170 emails/sec on a mid spec machine.

-- TWikiGuest - 23 May 2008