Outlook, Mailmate and avast finally working together.
The specific need was to have all mail scanned by avast for viruses. Using the avast! Exchange/Outlook provider all mail downloaded by Outlook was being scanned but the spam captured by Mailmate was not.
This appeared to be a simple proxy chaining issue with the need to have the mail first filtered by avast, then Mailmate and finally delivered to Outlook or retained by Mailmate in its spam folder.
After several attempts to "chain" the proxies we learned that actually Mailmate does not act in the normal fashion of a pass-thru transparent antispam proxy (like Spampal). Insead Mailmate acts as a mail client to download mail from all accounts and then acts as a POP server to distribute non spam mail to Outlook and retain all spam mail in a quarantine folder.
Once we realized this, it was relatively simple to put the avast! Internet Mail provider in front of Mailmate so that when it collected email from all accounts (as a standard mail client) the mail was scanned for viri while being downloaded.
The avast [mailscanner] section in avast4.ini was configured to listen to port 29110 since it appeared that another unknown application was already usuing 110. After that it was simply a matter of modifying the pop user name and pop server and port in the Mailmate account config using the standard instruction in the avast! help file for configuring the Internet mail provider.
Step one: changing the file AVAST4.INI
Open avast4.ini file in Notepad editor. You will find this file in the folder Data in your avast! installation folder, e.g. C:\Program Files\ALWIL Software\avast4\Data.
Find the section named [MailScanner]. Write these lines into this section (if they already exist, change them):
DefaultSmtpServer=smtp.server.com
DefaultPopServer=pop.server.com
DefaultImapServer=imap.server.com (only if you are using IMAP server for incoming mail).
Replace smtp.server.com by the address of the SMTP server you are using, e.g. smtp.tiscali.com. Do the same for POP (and IMAP) server (e.g. pop3.tiscali.com).
If your e-mail program supports SMTP authentication, and also makes it possible to set a different login name for SMTP than for POP, insert the line: UseDefaultSmtp=0.
If your e-mail program does not support SMTP authentication, insert the line: UseDefaultSmtp=1.
Save the changes and close the Notepad editor.
Step two: modifying the account properties in your mail program
Launch your mail program.
Let the program display the account settings.
If you want to check outgoing messages, change the address of SMTP server to the address of the local computer, i.e. 127.0.0.1.
If you want to check incoming messages, change the address of POP (IMAP) server to the address of the local computer, i.e. 127.0.0.1.
Change user (login) name this way: append the character # (double hash) and the address of your POP (IMAP) server (the same as you specified in the avast4.ini file in Step one). Login name should then look like this:
Ann.Jones#pop3.tiscali.com
If your e-mail program supports SMTP authentication and also makes it possible to set a different login name for SMTP than for POP
If the SMTP authentication is enabled, append the character # and the address of your SMTP server to the login name (e.g. annie2#smtp.tiscali.com).
If the SMTP authentication is disabled, enable it and use the character # together with the address of your SMTP server as the login name (e.g. #smtp.tiscali.com).
Save your changes.
The manual setting of the Mail scanner is now complete.
Now all mail downloaded by Mailmate is scanned by avast! and both spam and non-spam is disinfected if they contain viruses.
I am real glad you hung in there Clive, I think it was well worth while. Avast! is a superb program and I am delighted we solved this problem together.
Thanks,
Sean D
