• Quick Installation Guide
  • Step by Step
  • Admin User Guide
01. Introduction
  • Presence of the Machine
02. Hardware Requirement
03. Acquire the Software
04. System Configuration
05. Recover System via RAID
06. FAQ

The Presence of the Running Machine on the Internet

Everything has a start, and has an end.

Deploying a server over the Internet is different from setting up a local server without being revealed to outside people. For a server to be unknown on the Internet by fully-qualified hostname, it requires some registration processes. Furthermore, since the server is known to the public, some security measures should have been taken to avoid the abuse of the server.

This package includes basic elements for network operation, for example, DNS, FTP, firewall, backup storage server, VPN (Virtual Private Network) and Email .

We start from the introduction on Domain name registration with the following diagram:

1. Purchase domain name from the “vendor for domain name registration”

The “Domain Name Registration Vendor” usually will provide a Web interface for you to query your desired domain name. You may find some of the domain names you like have been acquired by other people. It is necessary for you need to find a domain name that is not being occupied. And then make the purchase of the domain name from the “Domain Name Registration Vendor” to complete this step.

2. Purchase Internet bandwidth and obtain “static” IP addresses from your local ISP (internet service provider).

Usually, the ISP will give you a set of IP addresses that may include a list of public IP addresses, the netmask, and the default Gateway. This IP information will be used when you install the software and configure your server. You shall keep the information in a safe place once you obtain that from your ISP.

3. Find a legitimate “DNS host provider”

It is to host your domain name (which you get from step 2) and the associated static IP address (which you get from step 3) record so that everybody on Internet can use your domain name to reach your server. Usually, the “DNS host provider” will provide a Web interface to allow you to input your domain name and the mapped IP address record into their hosted server. This step is completed after you have entered the data into the web page.

4. Update the record at the “Domain Name Registration Vendor” server with the IP addresses of the “DNS host provider”.

At this step, you need to access the website provided by “Domain Name Registration Vendor”. If you do not know the DNS server’s IP addresses of your “DNS host provider”, you can do as follows at your Windows command prompt (the command prompt is reached through Start > Run > cmd), issue the command

  C:\>nslookup DNS-server- name-from-your-provider

The system will respond with the IP address of your “DNS host provider”. Usually, you need to find two IP addresses of the two DNS servers provided by “DNS host provider” (one is called primary DNS host server, the other is secondary DNS host server). The two IP addresses will be entered into the record in the place of “Domain Name Registration Vendor”. We suggest using primary DNS server and secondary server from different places. The Azblink server package also provides DNS server. But to allow people all over the world can query your domain, you should have your domain name placed in different DNS servers to alleviate the load.

5. Wait until it is in effect.

In general, it needs 24 hours to 72 hours to have your domain name record of the server populated across the world so that people can use domain name to access your server.
Those are the general steps as long as you want to have your own private server(s) on Internet.

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Basic Web Setting

After the system installation be finished, take the CD out, reboot the machine, and then start the basic network setting for the system.

There are two modes to configure the host, one is console mode on the local host, and the other is Web interface mode on Client. You can choose the one you like or just by the network environment of that time.

Console Mode --- configure on local host

A. Input account and password to login into console configuration interface.

 login:reset
 Password:root123

B. You will see 7 options after login in

 1. IP Address:192.168.19.185
 2. Netmask:255.255.255.0
 3. Default Gateway:192.168.19.1
 4. Save and Reboot
 5. Reset to CD setting (DHCP) and Reboot
 6. View Current Active Values
 7. Exit without Saveing Changes

C. Is there any fixed ip ready for configuration?

  Yes, type fixed IP address, Netmask and Default Gateway into option 1.2.3. severally. You can use up
  and down arrow to choose the option who needs edit, and then press enter to configure. After option 1.2.3
  be correctly configured, you can use option 4 to save these changes and reboot the machine. (If you have
  no idea about the Netmask and Default Gateway, you can just refer to the Completion List provided by your
  ISP.)

  No, if there is a DHCP server providing the IP assignment services in your network, you can just use option6
  to check the IP address assigned by the system. After checking eth0, please write down the IP address, and
  remember to use option 7 to quit the Console interface.

D. By the IP address you set or the one obtained from DHCP, you can view the configuration page of the
   system host via Web browser on remote Client.

※ DHCP server exists in your network, but if you find eth0 shown as IP 1.2.3.4 when you check current system value, please check if your network cables plug into wrong place (eh0 and eth1 may been exchanged), or if there are some problems on other equipments. (Refer to Q&A in the manual)


Web interface Mode --- configure at sub-network

A. Is the host, which you installed system on, connected by other hosts?

  Yes, please confirm the host is the only DHCP sever (that is to say the network should not have other
  DHCP servers, e.g. IP distributor), and then start from C.

  No, please complete basic network configuration according to B’s instruction.

B. A network cable makes host’s eth1 port and the Hub connected. And use another cable to connect to
  Hub, let the other end of this cable link to a common Client computer.

C. Choose one Client computer from the sub-network which connected to the system host.

D. Open command prompt on the Client (suppose it’s a Windows machine), type “ipconfig” and then press
 “Enter” button, check whether the Default Gateway is 172.16.9.1 or not?

  Yes, just close the command prompt, enter into next step.

  No, type “ipconfig/release” to release the old IP in your computer, and then type “ipconfig/renew” to get
  new assigned IP.
  (If you are still unable to obtain new IP, please check if the network has other DHCP sever or not, or maybe
  TCP/IP of this Client does not use the mode of “Obtain an IP Address Automatically”.)

E. Open your Browser, and type http://172.16.9.1 at the address bar to link. When you visit the page at the
  first time, you will see 4 items;

  Host Name:Please set Host Name for this host.
  Admin Password:Default password is admin123.
  New Admin Password:Please set new password.
  Confirm Password:Please confirm your new password.

F. After you enter into system page, go to System>>Network, choose Internet or PPPoE depending on the
 situation.

  Choose Internet. At the Internet Interface, mostly, you should set the values for IP address / Netmask /
  Default Gateway and then submit, restart your machine and you will find it already connected to Internet.

  Choose PPPoE. If you use PPPoE, remember to check the checkbox of “Turn on PPPoE”. Fill in the account
  and password provided by ISP and submit, reboot your computer, then you can connect to the network.
  (Please refer to the sections of Configuration and Q&A in Quick Installation Guide if you have any questions.)

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Domain name, Host name

It can be classified as two major methods to send out emails: one is using “mail relay”, the other is sending emails directly without using relay. Using relay means: when a person uses some mail client programs like Outlook or Other Web-based email clients to connect to the server, the email will go to that relay server and be sent to the destination.

For domain name, you have to use a legal domain name that really points to this server. The whole procedure is described as follows: a domain name can be purchased from some vendors on the Internet. Once you acquire a domain name, you need to have a fixed IP address. Fixed IP addresses can be purchased from your Internet service provider(s).  However, how can you make sure that the IP address you want to use for the server is associated with the domain name you purchase?

When you purchase domain name from any Internet vendors, they will ask you to specify the DNS server (Domain name service server) that is with the record of associating IP address and domain name.

DNS server allows you to put the IP address and the domain name together so that people in the Internet can use domain name to access your server. Usually, the vendors selling domain names will put their DNS servers into the record of the domain name you purchase at beginning. To change the entry on their DNS servers, you probably need to pay another fee for that.

You also have the choice to switch the DNS server from your domain name vendors to other DNS servers provided elsewhere.  There are many DNS servers that they provide this service for free. But to put that into effect, you have to have your IP address registered in a legal DNS server along with your domain name.



In the screen here, “Domain name” specific for sending emails” and “Host name” for sending emails can be explained in the following example:

Your email server is known as “mail.DomainName.com”, but you want to have your email sent out like UserId@DomainName.com. At this moment, you should fill the information like

Domain name Specific for Sending emails:  DomainName.com
Host name Specific for Sending emails:  mail.DomainName.com

Please notice that “mail.DomainName.com” has to be a legal name registered in DNS server so that people can query. Nowadays, a lot of Email programs are performing reverse DNS lookup to check if the emails are sent out from a legally-registered server. If not, they just drop this email or send to the junk folder.

If you have a valid email domain name, you can attach more domain name alias to the valid domain name. At the field of “Hostname(s) or Domain Names to be used to receive emails”, you can enter those names that you wish this mail host to be the host. In this way, those attached names will be treated as the valid name to receive/send mail.  For example, if your mail host with the domain name like “mail.DomainName.com”, you can set up one more name called “DomainName.com”. With this setting, the email with the account user@mail.DomainName.com and user@DomainName.com will be valid to this mail host. If you have more than one alias name, you should separate  them by space while entering into the entry. The maximum size limit to the entry is 255 characters long. On the contrary, if you want the emails to be send out as user@DomainName.com but you do not want this host to receive emails as xxx@DomainName.com by putting those emails into this host when using mail relay, you can just put “localhost” in that field.

In your DNS record, you should set “DomainName.com” and “mail.DomainName.com” to the same IP address. There are two reasons to do that:

1. The webmail along with this software will use http://DomainName.com:8081/ while you login to the webmail
 system. To glue them together, you have to put “DomainName.com” and “main.DomainName.com” to the same
 IP address if your webmail and mail server are on the same machine.

2. It is easy to debug when you test your email server. You will not get confused when your email is going.
 Furthermore, you need to put “mail.DomainName.com” into MX record ( mail exchange record ) in your DNS
 server. To actually send emails or read the received emails, you can use Web-based client provided along with
 the server package. However, using that Web-based client might need to change some setting in your firewall
 that will be introduced in the firewall section. If you are using mail client programs like OutLook or OutLook
 Express, you might set as follows:

SMTP host: IP_Address_Of_Mail_Server or DomainName or Mail_Server’s Hostname

POP3 or IMAP : IP_Address_Of_Mail_Server or DomainName or Mail_Server’s Hostname



      

And with account information supplied, you can use that mail client to access mail server.

If the machine does not have legally-registered name over the Internet, you might consider to use “Relay”. When you use “Relay”, you should choose a host name that is not conflicting with the name with the host acting as mail agent to send out emails for you. For example, if the “mail agent” you are using is known as “mail.example.com”, you can just call your machine “mail2” in the following manner:

Host name Specific for Sending emails: mail2

Once you select to use “Relay”, you need to go to the “As Relay Client” screen to finish the rest of setting.



There is chance that you might want to use multiple domain names or hostnames to receive mails. In this case, you need to enter those names into the field “ Hostname or Domain Names to be used to receive mails”, each one of them should be separated by “space”. Be aware, those listed name must also be set at the DNS server.

Furthermore, sometimes you send an email by typing “wrong email account”, the email server will bounce an email back and say that the user does not exist on that server.  This is a good feature, but some email spammers are using this feature with “faked sender address” to bounce emails elsewhere. So, you might feel the network is slow due to those bounced emails.

To avoid bouncing emails back, you need to click the checkbox “Reject the requests for delivering to unknown local user without sending bounced emails”.

The machine will check the local user list at the first moment when emails are not received completely and reject the emails right away without letting it stay in the input buffer. Since the emails are not completely received, it will not bounce back the “sender”.

Virus Scan and Spam Mail Tagging

Please notice that this email server will perform Spam Mail tagging and Virus Scan if you turn on those options. Those actions will be performed before emails are saved to the each user’s folder. If Virus is detected, that email’s content will be replaced by “Virus XXX found” when “virus scan” is turned on.

Furthermore, if Spam Mail tagging is turned on, in the header portion on Email Protocol of each email, it will have something similar to the following added in mail header:

X-Spam-Level:  *
X-Spam-Status:  No, score=1.2 required=5.0 tests=ADVANCE_FEE_1,AWL, HTML_MESSAGE,SUBJECT

If the “Spam scores” obtained by the email is too high ( it is set as “5.0” internally at this moment), the content will be replaced with the major reasons why this email is identified as spammed email by attaching its original message at the end. Each user can use some filtering program on some mail client to move those “suspected junk mails” to other folders.

If you want Spam Mails being deleted directly on the mail server, you should just check the option “discard those emails being tagged as spam” so that those emails will not be shown to the end users. And turning on the option “discard those emails being tagged as spam” WILL NOT trigger “Spam Mail tagging” automatically. You have to explicitly turn on “Spam Mail tagging”.

Azblink Enterprise products include the functions to perform “Spam Mail tagging” and “Virus scanning” in a separate machine other than email server to alleviate the process load. If Spam Mail Tagging is performed on the machine already, you do not have to turn on the same function. Instead, you can just decide to discard it or not.

Mail Group Alias Management

When you want to send emails to a group of people, it is normal that you add those emails accounts into the recipient list one by one. But what would the other people also want to send an email to “this group of people” ?  He/she might not know each member of the group, but a message must be delivered to this group of people and this list might be used over and over again.

In this case, you can use “mail alias” by put a list of email accounts associating with this alias. And you can send emails to this alias so that each member in the list under that alias will receive emails.  For example, if you create an alias “shanghai” in your mail server known as domain name “yourDomain.com”. Thus, each user on this mail server is with the email address of the following format:

user@youdomain.com   ( for each normal user )

The alias “shanghai” includes a list of email address. But how do you send email to the group “shanghai” ?  You just treat it like other email address:

shanghai@yourdomain.com ( group alias )

Then, when you send to shanghai@yourdomain.com, each member in that list will receive that email. However, you have to notice that there is no such user “shanghai” in the system. Thus, you do not need to create a user account “shanghai” in the server. Creating a mail alias is enough to serve that purpose.

Web Mail Heading

Web mail can be accessed via http://ip_address/webmail/ . The following is to set the top portion text of your webmail.



In order to import Microsoft Outlook address book into the Web Mail Server address book, on this Web Mail Page, it provides a code conversion utility to convert the exported address book file of Microsoft Outlook file in local code page to UTF-8 code page. If you need to import the address book from your PC to Web Mail, by using this code conversion utility, you can complete this task by importing it into the Web Mail. During the importing process, please be aware the fields difference between two systems. Since, Web Mail has fewer data fields than Outlook, you should use the Web Mail fields as the basis of Outlook address book exporting. It will reduce the effort of you while importing.



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