his article applies to ChoiceMail Enterprise only.

If you think that the challenge mail is not going out - please first make sure that both ChoiceMail services are running. If the SMTP Service (the bottom one on the ChoiceMail Control Panel) is not running please start it up. It may take a long time for ChoiceMail to catch up with previous requests and clear the queue out if this was the case so please wait at least 24 hours before you try the test again.

If both services were running please go to the \\Queue folder under the main CME folder and then to the \\cm subfolder.

You should see some directories in there. Each directory will represent one domain name and in the directory you should find files that are messages waiting to be sent out. All of these are challenge messages waiting to be sent out and most (95% or so) will be invalid addresses. It is normal to have thousand or more domain names in there, but if you have 5000+ you may have had a problem with your networking.

If this is the case - please do the following.

1) STOP the ChoiceMail server and the ChoiceMail SMTP service
2) RENAME the \queue\cm\ folder to something else - "cm-old" for example
3) Start up the ChoiceMail SMTP service AND the ChoiceMail service.
4) Remove your test addresses from the sender list and retry - see if that fixes the problem.

If this does not help...

Each message is comprised of two files. One file is the .MSG file which is the actual message - the other one is the corresponding .NFO file that contains the information about the message.

Open the information file in notepad and take a look at the attempt count and reason for failure. Please report back what you found and we will go from there.

If none of the above applies ...

Please take a look at your unknown sender list. Do you see the email address there? If soe - what kind of icon does it have? Any red emblems? Move your mouse over the little icon and see what the pop up text says. If the sender is marked as spam for example - it may be that you set Reverse DNS record checking too high or you have a rule that is marking senders as spam. Strong SPF check or invalid SPF on the sender's part may trigger this as well.

Problem: Approved (whitelisted) mail is not appearing in your email application.

Cause: Exchange 2007 anti-spam filters are blocking the mail.

Solution: In Exchange 2007 make sure that only Recipient filtering is turned on ONLY if Validate recipients in real time is turned on in choicemail (recommended). Make sure all other filters are turned off as they are blocking mail from coming through. To do this go to the Exchange Management and then go to Organization Configuration and expand it. Open up the Hub Transport and go to the Anti-Spam tab in there make sure you disable ALL the filters EXCEPT the recipient filtering as that one works with the choicemail setup.

Once this is done restart the choicemail service and run a test with the previously blocked email.

nstructions to set up Auto White Listing

In ChoiceMail:

1. Bring up ChoiceMail's Control Panel

2. Stop both servers.

3. Click on ChoiceMail Server Setup

4. Click on Advanced

5. Click on 'Change Access Permission'

6. Set access permission to 'Full remote access' Or the IP address of the machine that Exchange is running on.

7. Click OK all the way out and Start both ChoiceMail Servers.

In Exchange:

Here are the instructions for setting up Auto White Listing if you are running Exchange 2000 or 2003.

1. Bring up Microsoft Exchange System Manager.

2. Click on the servers -> Expand to find the server that Exchange is on -> Expand that to find Protocols -> Expand that to find SMTP -> Click on the SMTP folder so that the Default SMTP Virtual Server is listed in the right hand column -> Right click on it and select Properties.

3. From the Default SMTP Virtual Server Properties screen click on the Delivery Tab.

4. Click on the Outbound Connections button at the bottom.

5. Change the TCP port to 35 and click OK

6. From the Default SMTP Virtual Server Properties screen -> Delivery Tab, Click on the Advanced button.

7. The fully qualified domain name should already be there but if it is not then you need to add it. If you control your MX records it is probably mail.yourdomain.com however if you are getting an email feed then it is probably your mail machine server name.yourdomain.com

8. The smart host should be in square brackets [127.0.0.1] IF ChoiceMail is installed on the same server as your mail server if not then in the square brackets you must list the IP Address of the server that ChoiceMail resides on.

9. Click OK

10. Click OK all the way out until you are back to the Default SMTP Virtual Server.

11. Make sure you remove any SMTP Connectors from the Connectors section on your system manager or this procedure will not work. 

12. Right click on it, but this time choose STOP. Once it has stopped then Choose Start.

13. Once it has started you are all set and Auto White Listing is now configured you can close all of the windows that you have open.

Before proceeding - please determine where your ChoiceMail is installed. The default location is C:\Program Files\DigiPortal Software\CMEnterprise

Step 1) Use the installer to install ChoiceMail on the new machine in the same folder as the old one. IMPORTANT: If you are moving from 32bit to 64bit system - the default location for the installer may change - please ensure that you are installing in the same location you had on the old computer.

Step 2) Stop the ChoiceMail servers on the old machine

Step 3) Copy the entire contents of the ChoiceMail folder on your old machine to the folder on the new machine where ChoiceMail was installed

Step 4) Update your network configuration (including firewall, mail server, and MX records if necessary) to reflect any changes in IP addresses due to the change in machine

Step 5) Make sure you prepare your Exchange server to receive mail on port 26 (for Exchange 2010 and later - please se comments below)

Step 6) Start ChoiceMail Enterprise on the new machine

IMPORTANT: If you are moving to Exchange 2010 and later:

Exchange 2010 and up has a slightly different network configuration options when it comes to the SMTP connectors.

Each connector not only has a port to listen on, but also a list of IP addresses or address ranges to ACCEPT connections from. If you open the properties for an SMTP connector - you will find that list in the bottom half of the window. You have to add the IP addresses that you want to allow to connect to that connector.

If you are trying to let ChoiceMail to connect to that Exchange server on the same computer - please add 127.0.0.1 and the local IP of that computer to that list.

In addition - there is the security/access tab where you select which users can or cannot connect to this connector. For ChoiceMail and any general mail receive connector - you have to have ANONYMOUS checkbox checked. This is the first one at the top of the list. If unchecked, ChoiceMail or mail from the Internet will not be accepted through that connector.

You usually have 3 default connectors.

a) The default Internet connector. This one has Anonymous access properly checked and will accept outside network ranges

b) FAX connector - this one is only used if you use FAX services on this Exchange server and it will accept connections from 127.0.0.1 only (best to disable this connector altogether)

c) Internal connector which will accept connections from local networks but only for authenticated users.

Best way to proceed is to change all three to listen on port 26 (if that's what you have in ChoiceMail) and make sure that you add your local IP address and 127.0.0.1 to the Internet connector (the one with anonymous access). The FAX connector can be disabled.

Step 1) Download the latest installer (you will have received the appropriate URL separately)

Step 2) Stop the ChoiceMail servers through the ChoiceMail Control Panel and then quit the ChoiceMail Control Panel itself.

Step 3) Run the new installer and install the new version directly over your existing installation. Normally the installer will detect the location of the previous installation and overwrite automatically.

Step 4) Open the ChoiceMail control panel and restart the servers

Problem: you sent out bulk email to a large constituency of users and some of them receive multiple copies of the message.

Solution: this can happen if your mail server times out too quickly before ChoiceMail can confirm that a message has been sent. The mail server then thinks that the message failed and resends it.

As the timeout settings cannot be configured on some older mail servers, we have modified ChoiceMail Enterprise to acknowledge message receipts earlier.

You can download the latest version of ChoiceMail Enterprise from though your existing URL link given to you by your salesperson.

If you are receiving thousands of messages addressed to non existing addresses in your organization - your mail server may have to issue a non-delivery report for each one of those.

Follow these steps to make you server more secure use the CME validrecipient feature. (scroll down for other servers)

FOR EXCHANGE 2003 SERVERS up as well as other mail servers directly supporting recipient filtering:

* 1) Make sure your server will not receive messages to unknown email addresses.

o a) In EXCHANGE SERVER 2003 (and up) Please go to Exchange System Manager      and navigate to the "Global Settings"

o b) Right Click on the "Message Delivery" and select "Properties".

o c) Please switch to the "Recipient Filtering" tab and check the box titled "Filter recipients who are not in the directory". Click on "OK"

o d) Navigate to your "Default Virtual SMTP Server", right click on it and select "Properties"

o e) Click on the "Advanced" button, then on the "Edit" button.

o f) Check the box titled "Apply Recipient Filtering" and OK all dialogs.

* 1a) For all other servers that support recipient filtering make sure you enable it according to the server documentation.

* 2) Open ChoiceMAil Control Panel, Go to "Server setup" for ChoiceMAil server and click on "Options". Make sure you check the box titled "Validate recipients in real time" and confirm all questions.

FOR ALL OTHER SERVERS (Exchange 5.5, 2000 and so on)
1) Create a text file called validrecipients.txt
2) Write all of your valid email addresses into that file. One per line. MAKE SURE THAT YOU ENTER ALL EMAIL ADDRESSES regardless if they are protected by CME or not. Also make sure that you include all domains and other variations of your email addresses.
The file should look like this:
someone@domain1.com
someone@domain2.com
someonesalias@domain.com
someonesalias.domain1.com
someoneelse@domain.com
...
and so on...
3) Place that file into your CME mailboxes folder. This is usually c:Program FilesDigiPortal SoftwareCM Enterprisemailboxes
4)Stop and start your CME service.

Test your new feature by sending an email to an existing and non existing address and verify the results.
AGAIN - MAKE SURE ALL EMAIL ADDRESSES ARE ENTERED AND SPELLED PROPERLY.

Exchange 5.5 does not have a capability to forward outgoing mail to any other port but port 25. Exchange servers 2000 and up do not have this limitation. To patch the problem - we have created a simple redirector service. The service and all supporting found in the mail folder where ChoiceMAil Enterprise was installed. The file is called cmredir.zip.
The files from this folder can be extracted to any folder on a server that does not use port 25. This can be your Exchange server as well if CME is installed on a different machine and your Exchange 5.5 is not listening on port 25 for incoming mail. Then do the following:
1) Open the ChoiceMailRedirectorSettings.INI file that you extracted and set up the properties as follows:
RedirectToPort=35
ListenOnPort=25
ChoiceMailServerAddress=PUT IP ADDRESS OF YOUR CME SERVER HERE
MailServerAddress=127.0.0.1
2) Double click on the installredir.cmd file to install the redirector service.
3) Double click on the StartRedirector.cmd to start the redirector service.
4) In ChoiceMail Server settings - click on the \"Change Access Permissions\" button and either change it to specific IP address entering your redirector IP Address or simply select \"Full remote access\"
5) Change the forwarding in your Exchange 5.5 to forward to your redirector server (in this case to 127.0.0.1)

The procedure is similar if redirector is installed on a different server. Only the IP addresses should be changed accordingly.

If you got a spam message in your inbox, check the internet headers of the message and find the X-ChoiceMail Accepted: reason header.

This header will explain why the message came through.

If you are using Outlook as your email client - simply right-click on the message and select "Options" from the popup menu. The headers are inside the "Internet Headers" field.

If the X-ChoiceMail Accepted Reason header does not appear in your message there are two possible explanations:

1) The email address to which the message was sent is not protected by ChoiceMail

2) You have more than one MX record and messages are coming directly to your corporate mail server and bypassing ChoiceMail.

Normally, (1) above is the usual reason and the source of the problem is either a misspelled email address or an internal distribution list.

Please check your email address and make sure that it is properly spelled.

Distribution lists.
If your company has a distribution list called "list_foo" (say) with three members and that group email address is called
list_foo@company.com
then that email address must itself be protected by ChoiceMail. If it is not - the three members of that group can get spam through that group email address.

To administer a ChoiceMail Enterprise server, you need to login using the following URL

http://ChoiceMailServerIPorName:8080/admin_login.html

where "ChoiceMail Server IP or Name" is the IP address or name of the server where you have installed ChoiceMail Enterprise.

If you changed the HTTP server port connection in ChoiceMail Enterprise from 8080 to some other
port then use that other port in place of 8080 in the URL.

Please see the following document for complete information on how to connect to a ChoiceMail Enterprise server as an admin user to do administration

http://www.digiportal.com/support/choicemail/documentation/enterprise/ChoiceMail%20Enterprise%20Administrative%20Guide.pdf

If challenges are not going out, the most likely possibility is that the ChoiceMail Outgoing Server has stopped. You can start this again from your ChoiceMail Enterprise control panel.

To make sure this critical service is always running go to

Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services

and double click on the ChoiceMail SMTP service.

Switch to the "Recovery" tab and make sure that the settings are set to restart the service if it fails. The restart counter should be set at 1 day.

This procedure can also be used for the main ChoiceMail service and indeed for any critical service you may be running on your system.

Symptom: although browsers on your Windows machines have no problem accessing the ChoiceMail server, your Macintosh (or other non-Windows machines such as Linux) fails to connect.

Solution: most likely this is because you are trying to access the Choicemail server using a name that is not available to your Macintosh systems. Windows machines on a network have multiple ways to resolve a name into the appropriate IP address but Macintosh and Linux need to resolve the name by DNS.

Either add the name of your ChoiceMail server to your DNS server or use the IP address of your ChoiceMail server explicitly in your Macintosh browser.

If you set up a new email address on your mail server, but the mail is not delivered and your senders are seeing an error message similar to "Address Error 500" then you probably enabled the option to filter incoming mail by recipient but have forgotten about it.

You need to remember to update the file called validrecipients.txt which is located in your \mailboxes\ folder whenever you add or remove email addresses on your mail server.

Please see this article for more information on this topic.

There is nothing special that needs to be done to make your Blackberry work after installing ChoiceMail.

In certain cases however - RIM notices Blackberry needs running coiuld be blocked by ChoiceMail. Adding the following to the Global Accepted Domains fixes issue.

ept01.ept.na.blackberry.net
ept02.ept.na.blackberry.net
ept03.ept.na.blackberry.net
ept04.ept.na.blackberry.net
ept05.ept.na.blackberry.net
ept06.ept.na.blackberry.net
ept07.ept.na.blackberry.net
ept08.ept.na.blackberry.net

In your particular case - the domain names maybe different. Please double check and allow these messages through to ensure proper Blackberry operation.

You may also consider creating a global permission rule
that deals with these messages.

You may have been attacked by a dictionary attack.

There is a few things you can do to prevent these. Please read all three steps BEFORE implementing them.

1) Please read the article at the URL below and implement the recommendation so that ChoiceMAil accepts only valid emails and effectively stopps these kinds of attacks right at the door.
http://www.digiportal.com/esupport/upload_zend/index.php?_a=knowledgebase&_j=questiondetails&_i=80&nav=+%26gt%3B+%3Ca+href%3D%27index.php%3F_a%3Dknowledgebase%26_j%3Dsubcat%26_i%3D22%27%3EHow+Do+I...in+ChoiceMail+Enterprise%3F%3C%2Fa%3E&PHPSESSID=a728b5d180452b518efc2f32b8581060

2) Once you finish the step 1. and before starting ChoiceMail again - I recommend going into the main ChoiceMail folder then \\mailboxes and delete the \"UnknownMessages\" folder BEFORE you start ChoiceMail. This folder may contain residu from previous attacks so it is a good idea to clean it up before starting ChoiceMail again. The folder will be recreated by ChoiceMail as soon as needed. This folder is part of ChoiceMail operation - do no delete it again.

3) Clean your Exchange BadMail folder. Now that you may have been attacked. Your Excange may be dealing with tons of NDR to be delivered. That would slow down the store.exe but ChiceMail as well.
Your BadMail folder may be something like this
c: \\Program Files\\Exchsrvr\\Mailroot\\vsi 1\\BadMail\\
Delete all files in there. Please note that this folder may contain MANY files at this point and simply listing the files there may be a challenge and take a LONG time. Best is to open command prompt and delete the files from there.

Once you implement all three steps your system should be back to normal AND you should be protected for the future as well.

Hope this helps.

ChoiceMail comes with a built in web server serving the web pages for user interaction. While this server is adequate and more importantly very secure - you may want to serve the little image files using another web server to speed up the process.

To do this please do the following (this assumes you have IIS installed on the same server as ChoiceMail)

Open up your IIS administration and go to the default web site.
Right click on it and select "Create new virtual directory".
Navigate through the wizard and name the folder "cmfiles" for example.
The real folder that this virtual folder should point to is under C:\Program files\DigiPortal Software\CM Enterprise\Templates\Images (substitute your path with wherever you installed your ChoiceMail, but the important thing is that this is pointing to the \Templates\Images subfolder)
The permissions should be given to read files. No other permissions are required nor recommended.

Once done - open up your web browser and type the following as your URL
http://YOURCOMPUTERNAME/cmfiles/Yes.gif (uou will obviously substitute the "YOURCOMPUTERNAME" with your computer name 🙂 )

You should see a small image that has the word "Yes" on it. If you do - everything is ready - otherwise your virtual directory was not set up correctly.

In ChoiceMail open up the Server Setup for ChoiceMail server. Go to the HTTP tab and replace the "path to images" with http://YOURCOMPUTERNAME/cmfiles/
Click on OK and wait for the service to restart.

Please note that if your users are accessing your ChoiceMail outside your network you may want to use the fully qualified name instead of YOURCOMPUTERNAME.

The same technique will work with any web server if you simply copy the contents of the \Images sub folder to some directory on the web server and then point your ChoiceMail to it.

The default ChoiceMail settings for this field is /images which instructs ChoiceMail to serve the files on its own.

Problem: In the Choicemail forward logs there is an ERROR during message forwarding.Error forwarding mail. Server returned 452 error code (Your mail server replied with:452 4.3.1 Insufficient system resources)

Analysis: This is probably happening due to the Back Pressure feature in Exchange Transport service.

Solution: First step is to reconfigure the Transport service you can do this by doing the following: Open the "EdgeTransport.exe.config" file which is located Program Files/Microsoft Exchange Bin folder.

Disable Resource monitoring or change the monitoring configuration:

Open the "EdgeTransport.exe.config" file with notepad and change resource values or even easier just disable the monitoring completely.
If you are changing the resource values the string should go from
add key="EnableResourceMonitoring" value="true" /
To
add key="EnableResourceMonitoring" value="false" /
Once this is done save the file and restart the Microsoft Exchange Transport servic

Various documents for installing and using ChoiceMail Enterprise are available for download in Adobe PDF format.

Click here to access ChoiceMail Enterprise documentation.

This process for changing the SMTP ports in Microsoft Exchange is is described in our online documentation.

Please see the ChoiceMail Enterprise Guides page on our website