How to Set Up hMailServer?

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This tutorial is developed to guide you to set up hMailServer on VPS or Dedicated Server, including the configuration of SMTP, TCP/IP ports and Internet. If you’d like to know the steps to install hMailServer, please refer to – How to Install hMailServer.

Before starting this, you need to prepare the following things and make sure they work.

  • A specific domain (take test.com as an example) that is pointed to the VPS.
  • You have a sub-domain, mail.test.com pointed to the VPS.
  • You have already set a MX record at domain registrar and make sure the value is set as mail.test.com.

Summary

You should set three records, they are:

        Type              Host Value
A @ The IP of targeted VPS
A mail The IP of targeted VPS
MX @ mail.test.com

If those were done, now let’s get a start to set up hMailServer!

SMTP

Please open hMailServer, select the target and hit Connect button. And then the following interface shows up.
 Set Up hMailServer 1

You can see Add domain button here, click it, add the specific domain and click Save.

 Set Up hMailServer 2

Then go to Settings –> Protocols –> SMTP, locate Delivery of e-mail.  Here we need to set the Local host name and Connection security. Local host name should be mail.test.com. In this tutorial, we set the connection security method as None for an example, None means Non-SSL/TLS.

 Set Up hMailServer 3

Now, locate RFC compliance. Here you can set some simple rules to restrict email activities. To make it easier, we check all boxes and click Save.

 Set Up hMailServer 4

TCP/IP ports

The second section is to set the TCP/IP ports. Please go to Advanced –> TCP/IP ports. You will see 4 ports, they are 25, 110, 143 and 587. Since we set the connection security method as None, so here we don’t need to do anything. However, if decided to set the connection security method as SSL/TLS, you are supposed to set Connection security of each port according what you need.

 Set Up hMailServer 5

Here is another very important step we need pay attention to, which is to open the four ports in Windows Firewall with Advanced Security. If you don’t know how to do this, please follow the tutorial – How to Open a Specific Port on a Server.

Internet

Now, it’s time for us to configure connections and SMTP authentication. Please locate to Advanced –> IP Ranges –> Internet. For this tutorial, we just need to adjust something, please refer to the following picture. However, you can also set them according to your situation.

set up hmailserver 6

Ending

By this time we finished almost things. Now let’s create an account to test. Please go back to Domains and locate to Accounts, click Add button to add an email account, you would be asked to enter the email user name and the password.  Once you create the email account, you can set it up on any mail client software to test it!

 Set Up hMailServer 7

At the end, let’s list all important items which can directly take effects on email service.

  1. The specific domain (take test.com as an example) is pointed to the VPS.
  2. You have a sub-domain, mail.test.com pointed to the VPS.
  3. You have already set a MX at domain registrar and make sure the value is set as mail.test.com.
  4. Go to Settings –> Protocols –> SMTP –> RFC compliance, check if you set it up correctly.
  5. Go to Advanced –> TCP/IP ports and check if you configured all ports correctly.
  6. You have opened related ports in Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.
  7. Go to Advanced –> IP Ranges –> Internet, check if you configured all things correctly.