GroupWise Internet Agent Overview
The Internet Agent allows communication between GroupWise users and users of other messaging systems who use the Internet to send e-mail. The Internet Agent picks up inbound e-mail messages from the Internet, converts them from RFC-822 or MIME format to the GroupWise message format, and then passes the converted messages to the GroupWise Message Transfer Agent (MTA).
For outgoing messages transported by the Internet, the GroupWise MTA passes the message to the Internet Agent, which then converts the message to Internet messaging format, and then sends it to the designated Internet address.
Choose from the following list of topics to learn more about the capabilities of the GroupWise Internet Agent.
- SMTP/MIME Service
- POP3 Service
- IMAP4 Service
- LDAP Services
- Secure Connections via SSL
- Access Control
- Multiple Threading
- SNMP-Compliant
- SMP Support (NetWare Version)
SMTP/MIME Service
The SMTP/MIME service in the Internet Agent allows you to send and receive e-mail with standard encoding on attachments, international character sets, and multipart messages. Multimedia e-mail with graphics, sound, and video can also be exchanged. The service also includes these additional features:
SMTP Dial-Up Service: The Internet Agent includes SMTP dial-up functionality. This can be useful when your system does not meet the requirements of a dedicated Internet connection, or when you prefer not to have a permanent Internet connection. With the SMTP dial-up feature, you can establish a schedule to periodically check the message store without having to maintain a permanent link.
Flexible Addressing: The Internet Agent offers full GroupWise addressing support, including system groups, nicknames, and individual users.
The Internet Agent also takes advantage of GroupWise Internet addressing, which allows inbound messages addressed in a variety of formats to be delivered to GW users. These formats include:
UserID@Internet_domain_name
UserID.PostOffice@Internet_domain_name
Last_Name.First_Name@Internet_domain_name
First_Name.Last_Name@Internet_domain_name
First_Initial_Last_Name@Internet_domain_nameInternet Users in the Address Book: Internet users can be added to the GroupWise Address Book so users won't have to remember long Internet addresses.
Real-Time Blacklists: Many organizations, such as Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS*), Open Relay DataBase (ORDB), and SpamCop, provide lists of IP addresses that are known to be open relay hosts or spam hosts. You can use the real-time blacklists provided by these sites to protect your users from offensive spam.
Accounting: The accounting feature provides inbound and outbound tracking of messages passing through Internet Agent. This lets administrators track how the Internet Agent is being used.
DNS Name Resolution: The Internet Agent can access a DNS server directly to resolve host names to IP addresses, or it can rely on a relay host to perform the name resolution.
Connect to Other GroupWise Systems Through the Internet: Using passthrough addressing, you can connect to other GroupWise systems anywhere on the Internet and have access to all of the GroupWise features. The Internet simply becomes a mail transport medium for GroupWise.
POP3 Service
The POP3 service in the Internet Agent allows you to download messages from your GroupWise post office to a POP3 client application such as a Web browser's e-mail program or a Telnet application. The Internet Agent acts as the POP3 server, providing a TCP connection between the user's GroupWise post office and a POP3 client. Accessing the GroupWise post office via the Internet Agent's POP3 server capability, users can retrieve their e-mail messages and manage them through user ID login options.
IMAP4 Service
The GroupWise Internet Agent supports the Internet Messaging Access Protocol 4 (IMAP4). As an IMAP4 server, the Internet Agent allows IMAP4-compliant e-mail clients to read and manipulate GroupWise messages.
LDAP Services
The Internet Agent supports the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory standard with LDAP server capability that allows access for directory searches of GroupWise post offices. Using LDAP Public Access, Internet mail clients can do lookups on GroupWise users and address information.
Secure Connections via SSL
The Internet Agent supports the use of SSL for its connections to SMTP hosts, POP3 clients, IMAP4 clients, and Internet Agent Web consoles.
Access Control
The Internet Agent program includes security capabilities called Access Control that allow administrators to control user access to all services (SMTP/MIME, LDAP, POP3, and IMAP4). Access Control can help you reduce costs and provide added security.
With the SMTP/MIME service, Access Control can be used to block messages being sent to or received from specific hosts.
Multiple Threading
Multiple threading allows more than one send or receive process to be running concurrently. You can configure the number of threads to enhance the speed and performance of the Internet Agent. The number of thread switches are set separately for the SMTP/MIME service, POP3 service, IMAP4 service, and LDAP service.
SNMP-Compliant
The NetWare version of the Internet Agent can be managed by any SNMP-compliant network manager, such as the Novell ManageWise® network management suite or the alarm management features of Novell ZENworks® Server Management.
The Windows version of the Internet Agent includes SNMP support for Windows NT and Windows 2000. The Linux version of the Internet Agent is also SNMP compliant.