Mailtraq - the Complete Email Server
   

Enstar for Mailtraq email server sales & support
Making world-class Internet technology affordable  

Search for:

Advanced search

System Mail Archive

The System Archive in AFX

Options | System Mail Archive, is where the default system archive settings are entered.

System Archive

System Archive-tab, which appears in the System Archive properties dialog, is used to determine whether or not mail is removed from the archive after a period of time. 

If you want the mail to be automatically removed from the archive, check Keep messages until they are... and set the time here. 

Important!

The age specified on this tab refers to the Message Age (i.e. the length of time for which the message has been in the database) and not the length of time it has been in the archive.

For example: you may have a mailslot that archives mail after one month and a mail retention policy of two months.  What this means is that mail will move from the mailslot to the archive after one month, and will then be deleted from
the archive after one more month. 

Exporting Archives
Mailtraq provides the ability to export messages (rather than delete them) from the archives after a set period. Administrators may wish to  burn the extarchive to CD/DVD, for permanent record.

Messages can be re-introduced to Mailtraq at a future date by using the
Import Message Wizard .

 

Default Archive Settings

The Default setting is Disabled (No Archiving). 

The "System Archive" determines what happens to mail that is currently in each mailslot's individual archive.  Based on the System Archive settings, mail is "expired" from individual mailslot archive to a combined .afx or .afv (database) file. 

The database file is created named according to the System Archive period. It does not store the original mailslot name - all expired messages for a given period are consolidated into one AFX or AFV/IDX database paired-file for long term storage. These files are no longer directly viewable so you re-import them into a 'temporary' mailbox to search and extract messages. 

Searching and Retrieval
To retrieve messages from an 'expired' archive simply create a mailbox in the Console and import the archive
(Tools | Import Messages...)

To search for messages then use Tools | Search for Messages... 

Configuration
Archiving is configured from these entries in the Console at: 

1.) Options | System Mail Archive, where the default system archive settings are entered.

2.) Options | Server | Database | Schedule Message Indexing
     Select and set schedule when the Index Service should run (normally overnight).

Care should be taken with the configuration of the default System Archive settings, as individual mailboxes reference these settings in their 'Default' archive mode.

Advanced Archive Settings

KB14030401 Advanced Archiving - Archive Quota

Mailtraq archives messages by default based on time - how long a message has been in storage.

In some large situations, such as a large installation, you may want to archive based on database file size in order to limit the overall size of the mail database.

Read more... Advanced Archiving - Archive Quota

 

 Message Recovery


 

Administrator Recovery - using the Console

Each mailbox has a live Mailslot and its matching Archive

Messages can be found in the Archive (and/or the live box) by using Tools | Search for Message, where the mail archive can be searched. 

Select the Mailslot or Archive in the 'Mailslots' tab. 

Results are displayed in the Message Search dialog, and can be selected, then Moved, Copied or re-Routed. 

 

Importance of Indexing
Messages are not available for recovery from the Archive until they have been Indexed.
See Configuration Tips below.


User Recovery - using webmail

Enhanced web mail 

Users of EWA webmail can browse their Archive.
"My Archive" is displayed on the tree on the left if :

[x]  " Allow users to access their mailslot archives "

is checked in the webmail 'admin' section, Search Message Contents-tab.

Users can then use the "Copy" command, say to their Inbox or a folder created for this purpose, to get mail out of an archive but they cannot modify the archive content.

 

Standard web mail

It is not possible for users of Standard web mail to browse their Archive. Users of Standard webmail can use the message 'Search' to search their archive if the administrator has enabled this function.


Configuration Tips:

Mailbox Archive Settings

In addition to the system settings for the Archiving you can configure the archive policy on a mailbox by mailbox basis.

You can adjust these at the Mailbox Properties | Archive tab.

Individual mailboxes do not archive their messages by default.

If you are using the Default archive settings it is not normally necessary to establish individual archive settings.

If you are capturing all incoming messages (Read about creating basic Archives here.)  then you can if necessary  set the mailbox to Delete Messages instead of Archiving them. This reduces the number of messages held in an individual's mailbox and so reduces the server load for IMAP and Webmail.
Users can be allowed to recover their own Archived messages via both EWA-webmail and Standard-webmail.

 

Organizational Mail Retention Policy

Many governments are beginning to define mail retention requirements for corporations, making it mandatory for you to have a history of all e-mail for a required period.  Similarly, it is often not in the corporation's best interests to maintain mail indefinitely.  For both of these reasons setting a specific mail retention policy is a safe way to control what happens to your mail in the long term.

Note that only mailslots which enable an archiving policy will actually archive messages to the system archive.  A simple means for getting all messages regardless of destination is to create an inbound copy mailslot and use the Forward a copy of all incoming mail to feature in Options | Incoming Mail... | Options. 

Since all mail (both received from outside the organization and sent from within the organization) is at some point incoming to Mailtraq, this option will effectively copy all mail that is processed.  Then simply configure the archive settings for that mailslot to move messages to the system archive after a short period.     Read about creating basic Archives here.

Recovering Messages

1. Messages are not available for recovery from the Archive until they have been Indexed.
Indexing can be set by the Administrator at Options | Server | Database | Schedule Automatic Message Index Maintenance.
Messages that are within the index period (and so not yet available to the Archive tool) will be available from the individual mailbox - depending on the Archive settings in the mailbox itself.

2. The Console Archive display has an maximum limit of ~4000 items shown. This limit is to conserve system resources. Use Tools | Search for Message to find messages. If your search produces too many results you will see a notice at the bottom of the Search Dialog box. 

Finished. Too many results to display all of them.

In this situation you simply need to restrict the range of the search to reduce the number of results.


 

Download Trial
Buy now
Screenshots
Requirements
Feature Tree
FAQs
What's new
Print this pagePrint this Page  
Mailtraq 2.12 PDFDatasheet  
Send a friend an email about MailtraqShareMailtraq - Email Server at Delicious Mailtraq - Mail Server at digg Mailtraq - Mail Server at FacebookMailtraq - Email Server at stumbleupon Tweet about Mailtraq 

 

 

 
Mailtraq Highlights...
 SMTP Server     Mailtraq SMTP email server video IMAP Server     Mailtraq IMAP email Server video
 POP3 Server     Mailtraq POP3 email server video Proxy Server     Mailtraq proxy email server video
 Webmail Server     Mailtraq webmail email server video Mailing-list Server     Mailing list email server video
 Groupware Services     Mailtraq groupware email services video Spam and Virus control     Spam and virus control email server video

 

   Copyright © 2003 - 2011 Enstar Ltd, Enstar LLC & Fastraq Ltd. All rights reserved. Privacy policy.
   Mailtraq® is a registered trademark of Fastraq Limited.