Frequently Asked Questions
This page should help answer almost any question you may have. Please select from the list below what you would like to know.

How can I buy Ocean Mail Server?
Why am I unable to receive any emails?
How do I configure my router or firewall?
Why is my outgoing mail not working?
Why do I receive a 530 or 550 ‘Account does not exist’ error message when sending mail?
How do I create and/or modify the WebMail templates?
How do I update my installation to the latest version?
How do I configure my MX records on my DNS?
How do I create a backup mail service?
Why can't I send mail to AOL accounts?
How do I obtain a DNS host address for outgoing mail?
My ISP is blocking some of my ports, what can I do?
How do I configure Antivirus Filtering to work with my Antivirus?
Why can’t I create the same username and password pair on more than one domain?
How do you set up access to shared folders on other computers?

How can I buy Ocean Mail Server?
You can buy Ocean Mail Server via our site with almost any major credit/debit card, check, money order, wire transfer and more. We use a company called SWReg which allows us to accept payments online, over the phone, by fax or by post. For more information please view the Prices page.

Why am I unable to receive any emails?
A common cause of this error is usually due to a router or firewall preventing incoming connections (the incoming mail). If this is the case then read the next question below. To receive incoming mail, you need to ensure that your domain's MX records are configured correctly. For example, codeocean.com is our email domain and mail.codeocean.com is the host address of the computer which receives our incoming mail. To ensure the correct computer receives the mail, we have placed mail.codeocean.com at the top of our MX record list and have given it the lowest value priority level (the lowest value entry is used first). It is then also important that port 25 on the computer running Ocean Mail Server is open and accessible from the Internet. This can be tested by asking a friend to telnet port 25 on your computer from another computer on the Internet (they should type "telnet yourip 25" into an MS-DOS prompt or Command Console). This will cause their computer to connect directly to the incoming mail part of the software and they should see some kind of welcome message. If they do not receive any response, it is likely that your ISP is blocking port 25. Read more.

How do I configure my router or firewall?
For more information on this please view the Tutorial: Setting Up Your Hardware page.

Why is my outgoing mail not working?
Outgoing mail is probably the most complex part of Ocean Mail Server and often leads to problems. However, there are 2 ways provided by Ocean Mail Server which help determine the source of the problem. The first option is to run the system diagnostics (available in Tools). If this doesn't turn up any results then you can look at the logs (files named 'smtp' or 'outmail'). Usually when there is a serious problem it gets listed in the log. If you are still unable to highlight the problem, you should check the settings of your mail client.

Why do I receive a 530 or 550 ‘Account does not exist’ error message when sending mail?
Usually the most common cause of this is that you have not correctly configured your mail client. If you have enabled SMTP Authentication on the mail server, your mail client should be set to log in to the outgoing mail server. Also, check that the host or IP address entered into the client is correct.

How do I create and/or modify the WebMail templates?
For more information on this please view the Tutorial: Editing WebMail Templates page.

How do I update my installation to the latest version?
There are two methods and both should ensure your current settings, accounts and stored mails remain intact. The methods are...

1. If you have purchased a license key, you can simply select the 'Update' button on the 'Help' dialog.
2. If you have not yet purchased Ocean Mail Server, then you will need to re-download and then reinstall the application. Before you perform the reinstallation, you will need to close Ocean Mail Server.

Please note that updating or reinstallation will overwrite important installation files. This also includes the default WebMail and Remote Admin files. We strongly recommend making a backup of the Ocean Mail Server folder before updating.

How do I configure my MX records on my DNS?
MX records are a bit like sign posts, giving directions for incoming mails to the computer who is designated to receive them. When you send a mail from your computer, it is usually sent to an outgoing SMTP (e.g. Ocean Mail Server) which is then responsible for deciding where to send the mail. It makes this decision based on the MX records for that mail’s domain (the domain is the part after the @ symbol in the email address). The MX records are stored on the domain’s DNS and come in the form of a table of hosts and their priority levels. The entry in the list with the lowest priority value is used first, and upon failure, the next entry is used (in the order of lowest value priority to the highest). All domains need at least one entry to ensure email will work correctly. This should be the host or IP address of the computer running the mail server for that domain.

How do I create a backup mail service?
The first and most important thing you need to understand is how MX records work (please view the above question). The concept of a backup mail service is that one computer is the primary receiver of incoming mail and one or more other computers are backup receivers, which on receiving an email will attempt to forward it onto the primary server. If the primary server is off-line, a backup mail server should then hold all incoming mails for a given period, during which it should keep trying to forward the mails on.
To set up Ocean Mail Server to act as a backup, you will need to create a new domain, which should be configured as a backup domain. You then need to create a static route for this domain. The static route should be set to relay mode and should direct the flow of mail back to the primary server. It is also recommended that you configure the static route to hold the mail for longer periods by setting a longer queue life. This ensures that the primary server has sufficient time to get back online.
Once Ocean Mail Server is configured correctly, you can then specify the host / IP address as an additional (higher value priority) entry in the MX records for that domain. This will then ensure that if the primary server goes down, the backup server will then begin receiving the mails for that domain.

Why can't I send mail to AOL accounts?
This is a common problem for home DSL users who run their own mail server. Usually the reason for this is that AOL believes you are a SPAM threat and blocks your mail. This is usually determined by your IP address being a dynamically allocated IP and there is usually only one option for getting around it. If you have access to another SMTP (your ISP usually provides one), you can reroute all AOL mail via that. It is less likely that AOL would block your ISP and so this makes an invisible fix to the problem. Rerouting can be set up by creating a static route for aol.com in the Outgoing Mail service. This static route should be configured to run in relay mode.

How do I obtain a DNS host address for outgoing mail?
The easiest method of getting this information can be done by contacting your ISP and asking them. However, if this isn't preferred then you can attempt to extract the information from your computer.
Firstly it depends on how your network is set up at home. If you're using ICS or a proxy to share the Internet connection amongst multiple computers, and Ocean Mail Server is located on another computer without direct access to the Internet, then you need to retrieve the information from the computer which is sharing the Internet connection. If Ocean Mail Server is running directly on the computer with the Internet connection, then you are fine to get the information from that computer directly. The method of retrieving the DNS information depends on your operating system...

Windows 95, 98, ME, NT...

1. Open an MS-DOS prompt.
2. Type "winipcfg" and hit the ENTER key.
3. On the dialog that appears, select the correct network device from the drop down list.
4. You should now see details of your computers Internet connection, one or two of which should be the DNS servers

Windows 2000, XP and 2003...

1. Open a Command Console (Run: cmd).
2. Type "ipconfig/all" and hit the ENTER key.
3. Scroll up or down the list of network devices and locate your Internet network device.
4. You should be able to view the 'DNS Servers'. The IPs listed here are your Internet provider's DNS servers.

My ISP is blocking some of my ports, what can I do?
This is a common problem which some of our customers experience and what to do depends on what ports are being blocked. If ports 110 (POP3), 143 (IMAP4), 389 (LDAP) or 8000 (WebMail) are being blocked then it is a simple matter of changing the port value and informing your users to use that port instead. However, if your ISP is blocking port 25 and you intend to receive mail from the Internet, you have a much bigger problem. This is because SMTP must have port 25 and cannot just be changed. However, a company called No-IP have a ‘port redirection’ solution to this which allows you to change the port. For more information on No-IPs service, please visit the No-IP site.

How do I configure Antivirus Filtering to work with my Antivirus?
For an antivirus product to work with the Antivirus Filtering service, it needs to support command line scanning. Ocean Mail server can also scan the raw email data before scanning each of the constituent parts. Therefore, SMTP Gateway and corporate antivirus products with SMTP and MIME scanning intelligence are the most effective products to use. Please contact your antivirus vendor for more detail.

Why can’t I create the same username and password pair on more than one domain?
The reason for this is that Ocean Mail Server permits users to login into a service using just the user and the password (with no mention of the domain). If the same username and password pair existed on another domain, the mail server would have no way to know which was the correct account being logged into. In a future update we plan to add support for turning off username only login. This would force users to use the full email address as the username, therefore allowing the same username and password pair on multiple domains.

How do you set up access to shared folders on other computers?
If you are not running Ocean Mail Server as an NT Service then this is very simple. It can be achieved by specifying the shared folder in the same place where you would normally specify a local directory path. However, the shared folder cannot be accessed via a mapped drive so you must use the full path name (e.g. \\pc1\shared).
If you are running the software as an NT Service then the procedure is the same as above but with an additional step. By default the NT Service runs under a default account which has no access permissions to shared folders on other computers. To gain this permission you will need to change the account which the NT Service runs under. This can be done by entering the Administration Tools and then opening the Services option dialog. Once opened, you can adjust the properties of the 'Ocean Mail Server' service and set a different account. For the changes to take effect you must restart the Ocean Mail Server NT Service. Please note that the only problem with changing the account is that you will no longer have the system tray icon for Ocean Mail Server when running the NT Service. This means that all administration must be done via the Remote Admin interface or by switching back to application mode.

If this page has not solved your problem or you have any suggestions, please contact us.