A Cloud based mail server for small to medium business

The thinc-MAIL Email Server includes an innovative user-interface for WebMail – The mail server software is designed for high-performance, easy administration, and advanced Groupware features.

Complete Mail Server Support
The mail-server mode of thinc-MAIL Email Server includes support for SMTP, POP3 & IMAP protocols. Built on open-source the SMTP server is powered by the Exim and Dovecot for POP3/IMAP support. MySQL is used as the database backend for user-accounts, email-forwarding, aliases, autoreply’s and more. Optionally use an existing LDAP server for authentication. The thinc-MAIL Server is presented with the intuitive and easy to use Webadmin and WebMail interfaces, making open-source easy.

Groupware Server
The thinc-MAIL Server can be used as a lightweight Exchange alternative. Users share address-book, calendar and task data with other users on the system. iCal/CalDAV support is included to synchronize data between the calendar server, desktop clients and mobile devices such as an iPhone. Use the system as a complete Exchange alternative running under a stable Linux OS built on open-source reliability and security.

Webmail Client included
Included in the thinc-MAIL Server edition is the complete thinc-MAIL Webmail client – With the ability for users to change account passwords, specify auto-reply messages, email forwarding rules, Spam settings and more. The Webmail client supports email threading, conversations, attachment preview/thumbnails and more.

Email Server Anti-Virus Support
The thinc-MAIL Server can scan incoming and outgoing messages for viruses, protecting user accounts from infection. Email that contains viruses (as attachments, even if compressed) are automatically deleted from the system. Each message received via the SMTP server can be filtered by the Anti-Virus plugin and mail delivered to the users mailbox if the email is clean. All viruses are logged in the database, allowing administrators to monitor the system status and protect end-users from infection.

Anti-Spam Filter
thinc-MAIL includes a comprehensive email filter powered by SpamAssassin and extra runtime settings at the SMTP server level to throttle and block Spammer connections. Features include Bayesian (learning) filters, DNSBL support, URI checking in messages against blacklists, auto-whitelist for trusted senders from recipients email history and Webadmin reporting utilities. By using the Anti-Spam features in thinc-MAIL end user-accounts can be protected from inbound Spam messages and the server clean from Spammer abuse.

Comprehensive WebAdmin interface
The administration of the mail-server is made easy by a WebAdmin control-panel. Allowing the administrator of the service to add, delete, modify, migrate, and purge-user accounts. System aliases, graphical log statistics of mail-server usage ( sent/received message, AV/spam reports, user-logins via IMAP and more ).

Complete WebMail Client
The mail-server mode of thinc-MAIL Email Server includes the complete WebMail interface of thinc-MAIL – With the ability for users to change account passwords, specify autoreply messages, email forwarding rules via the WebMail interface. Email-messages via WebMail are read natively via the maildir format to increase system performance.

Maildir support
Email messages are stored by thinc-MAIL Email Server in Maildir format, greatly increasing performance over traditional mailbox storage. With delivery handled by binaries compiled from C source, the overhead of invoking processes is reduced, conserving system resources.

SQL Database support
The thinc-MAIL Server uses an SQL database to store all user data, including settings, Address-book data, authentication, filters, and spam-filter settings. The source code of thinc-MAIL Email Server can be easily modified to query an existing SQL database for authentication or integration with existing services.

Industry Usage

The thinc-MAIL Server is built as a complete messaging platform for any industry type. Example usage scenarios include:

Small Business
Use thinc-MAIL to provide a complete messaging platform for your company employees and staff. Full mail-server included supporting POP3/IMAP servers, Webmail client, Calendar, and Groupware features. Use desktop clients to communicate to the thinc-MAIL server and utilize the Webmail interface to access user accounts. Simple Web-based administration is included.

Internet Service Providers
Provide thinc-MAIL as a comprehensive email server solution for your business and clients. Host client email accounts using thinc-MAIL and offer Sub-administration for clients to manage their own domain and users. thinc-MAIL is designed to scale to millions of user-accounts and offers clustering solutions for high-load and availability.

Education
Offer campus-wide email accounts to students and staff using thinc-MAIL. Use the Webmail interface as a communication platform for students, and integrate thinc-MAIL with an existing LDAP server for authentication.

Access your contacts anywhere.

Create your contacts through a simple, elegant web interface or through your phone. Share them with friends, coworkers and colleagues – through numerous supported clients and mobile devices.

Features

CardDAV Client support thinc-MAIL supports the open-protocol CardDAV for addressbook data. Connect to a CardDAV account and list, view, edit, modify contacts directly from the server. Embrace open-protocols for your contact data. ActiveSync support Supporting the ActiveSync protocol licensed from Microsoft, thinc-MAIL provides push contact support to mobile-devices such as the iPhone, Windows Mobile and Andorid phones. Grouping Interface Creating address book groups is now easier than ever. In the thinc-MAIL 6 Address Book, groups function like folders, complete with drag-and-drop support. Photo Thumbnails Quickly add a contact’s photo to their Addressbook entry. Vcard support For businesses and individuals relying on the rapid transfer of contact information, Vcard support helps by allowing the direct import (and export) of a contact’s information, avoiding tedious data entry. Drag ‘n Drop Intuitive “Drag ‘n Drop” functionality enables the easy management of groups of contacts. Shared ContactsContacts can be shared among users’ addressbooks.

Address-book Groupware

Use thinc-MAIL and setup a shared address-book for important company and client contacts. Allow users to access the Global Address List to easily send messages to users within the organization. Boost productivity by sharing contacts and information. Global This is a group of Address Book entries representing every account on your thinc-MAIL system. The GAL (Global Address List) allows anyone in your organization to connect with other users and view contact information and details. Personal The Personal Address-book allows users to separate personal contacts from Global and Shared contacts. These contacts can only be viewed by the individual user account. SharedThe Shared Address-book adds functionality to share contacts with other users (or groups of users). Shared contacts can be assigned read/write permissions which enables the users with whom the contacts are shared to modify the contact entries directly. Optionally, read-only access can be granted to allow the entry to be viewed by selected users, but can only be modified by the original owner.

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Provide more than just standard webmail.

Use thinc-MAIL as a complete Webmail client for your organization’s existing IMAP server. The software provides a comprehensive email suite for accessing user mailboxes, and provides inbuilt Calendar and Addressbook features.

Connect.

thinc-MAIL allows users to access IMAP Mailboxes on any server of your choice. You and your users can experience webmail via a fluid, intuitive interface that excels aesthetically and functionally; a benchmark that very few webmail clients have achieved.

Share.

Staying in touch with business or personal contacts is made easy by the groupware features of thinc-MAIL. The easy-to-use calendar events, tasks, and free-busy scheduler provide collaboration and communication around the clock, with the simplicity of a browser-based interface.

Relax.

We made sure that the thinc-MAIL installation and administration process is as stress-free as possible – so much so that it won’t take more than a minute of your time. thinc-MAIL Webmail plugs in directly to your IMAP servers with minimal configuration and requires very little, if any maintenance at all.

Feature snapshot

Browse a quick feature list snapshot of the thinc-MAIL Webmail client:

• IMAP, IMAPs support
• Complete email interface
• Web-based Addressbook
• Web-based Calendar
• Full MIME support – Inline attachments, UTF-8 support
• IMAP threading, sorting and search support
• Drag and Drop support for emails and contacts
• Multilingual support – Folders, emails, attachments
• Rich HTML email editor and attachments
• PDF thumbnail support for inline attachments
• vCard support for Addressbook
• MySQL storage for user sessions, settings and data
• Groupware features with CalDAV support
• Complete Web-based management, logs, reporting, settings, branding
• Rebranding support – Easy to edit CSS to restyle the interface
• Full source-code and easy to edit HTML templates
• Written in PHP using the Zend framework
• jQuery toolkit used for the Ajax Webmail interface

Webmail Client – Detailed Feature List

thinc-MAIL Webmail boasts an innovative user interface, complete Email interface, Addressbook and Calendar features included – Pushing the boundaries of the traditional WebMail feature-set: Intuitive Webmail GUI thinc-MAIL’s redesigned and streamlined interface utilizes the latest in Javascript & XML (AJAX) technologies such as jQuery to provide a smooth, responsive experience with excellent feedback offered to the user. Full MIME Support thinc-MAIL supports MIME email messages, allowing users to receive attached pictures, multimedia content and data contained in email messages. Users can compose email messages and attach files to outgoing messages. IMAP / IMAPs support thinc-MAIL utilizes IMAP to for all communication to the mail-server. Intelligent caching and IMAP commands are used to reduce the load on the mail-server and allow the Webmail-interface to handle high load and scale between multiple servers. thinc-MAIL utilizes additional IMAP extensions if available on the mail-server, including IMAP threading, IMAP sort, and IMAP search functionalities. Full support for IMAP SSL is included. Groupware support Included in the Webmail-client is a full groupware suite – Allowing users to share address-book, calendar and tasks. Groupware data can be shared between users on the thinc-MAIL system on either a domain or site-wide basis. Learn more about the Groupware features available. Enhanced Address Book The new thinc-MAIL 6 Address Book is completely redesigned and streamlined. Included in this release are native Vcard support, photo thumbnails, and an improved contact grouping system. The intuitive new interface allows quick navigation and modification of contact details. Calendar Server Included thinc-MAIL includes a Calendar server based on the CalDAV protocol – Using the Web interface users can access the Calendar feature for adding events and tasks, and optionally share events between users on the local server. The thinc-MAIL Calendar server can be used to sync and access calendaring data on desktop clients and mobile devices. Use Sunbird, iCal or other desktop applications to access the Calendar server of thinc-MAIL. Users can use mobile-devices such as an iPhone to natively access events and tasks using CalDAV to thinc-MAIL’s inbuilt Calendar server. CalDAV client support The Calendar client of thinc-MAIL supports the CalDAV open protocol for calendaring. Use the inbuilt Calendar server of thinc-MAIL, or use your organizations existing Calendar server. thinc-MAIL supports a variety of Calendar servers, including Apple Calendar Server, Bedework, Davical and other servers which implement the CalDAV protocol. Solid Framework thinc-MAIL 6 has been completely rewritten using the Zend PHP Framework, using the MVC (Model,View,Controller) principle. The Webmail and Calendaring interface are built using the jQuery Javascript toolkit to provide a solid framework for development, and a seamless user-interface experience. Tabbed Email Browsing Email messages can be viewed within a tabbed pane below the folder message-list pane. The tabbed interface allows quick navigation of messages. HTML templates for easy customization The user interface and overall appearance of thinc-MAIL Webmail Client is created using HTML templates; the HTML source code and output of the core PHP system are separated, allowing for easy modification and customization. You can modify the thinc-MAIL Webmail Client system to match the branding of your organization by editing the HTML template source code. Folder Management Utility Messages received by thinc-MAIL Webmail Client can be moved among folders for sorting and archiving purposes. New folders and sub folders can be added and deleted, allowing users to categorize and organize messages. Mailbox Sorting & Searching Messages contained in a user’s Inbox can be sorted by Subject, Date, or Email Address. Users can search their mailbox for messages containing matches of the user-specified string, allowing quick and easy access to stored email. Multiple Languages Availablethinc-MAIL 6 is currently available in English, Espanol, French, German, Italian.

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Never miss an appointment again.

Create calendar entries to keep you in touch with what’s going on. Share your events so people know what you’re up to. Be reminded of important tasks, events and meetings – all this, within your browser or a mobile device of your choice.

CalDAV Calendar Client

The Calendar client supports the following features:

• A stunning Ajax Web Calendar which supports creation of events, tasks, and allow users to schedule work and appointments.
• Daily and weekly calendar view included.
• Intuitive Web interface for creating, moving and resizing scheduled events.
• CalDAV client – Use the inbuilt Web Calendar to access any existing CalDAV server, or the inbuilt thinc-MAIL Calendar server.
• View shared Calendars, users availability and all the features you’d expect in a groupware solution.
• Support for IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and modern browsers.

The thinc-MAIL Calendar is a iCal/CalDAV client, allowing the software to access any CalDAV server implementation. For example; Apple/Darwin Calendar Server, Bedework, Sun’s Calendar server, Oracle, or open-source solutions such as DaviCal. If you are rolling out the thinc-MAIL solution, you can keep your existing Calendar server implementation or use the inbuilt Calendar server provided.

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Share, collaborate, communicate.

Have your contacts and calendar items open to others. Share a single contact list with people who need to know. Make your data available, on your terms.

thinc-MAIL Groupware Calendar

Need to share a Calendar with users on the thinc-MAIL system? Using the inbuilt Groupware features you can easily share events, tasks and address-book data with users on the system. Help increase your organizations productivity and information sharing using the thinc-MAIL groupware features. Use the Web-based Calendar client in thinc-MAIL, or connect your desktop client such as iCal, Thunderbird, or Outlook with a CalDAV plugin. The thinc-MAIL Calendar allows users to create appointments and tasks then share the data with others. Permission level settings are provided, enabling the owner of a calendar to enable or restrict the recipients ability to modify and access the data. Using the CalDAV protocol thinc-MAIL implements an open-protocol Groupware solution – No proprietary system or vendor-lock in for Calendaring data.

Uses for thinc-MAIL Groupware

Small-business A global calendar can be created for your organization which will notify all respective personnel of meetings and important events. Create a shared calendar for sales and support teams, and distribute important events and scheduling data with your organization. Internet Providers Offer customers more then just standard email. Add enterprise grade groupware to add-value to your offerings, and give users to tools to share data and collaborate better. Rebrand the Calendar interface and create your own white-label service. EducationConnect students and staff with campus wide events, scheduled classes, exams, and more. All shared calendar data is available via the thinc-MAIL Calendar interface, or you can connect a variety of third-party desktop clients and mobile-phones to access data.

Address-book Groupware

Use thinc-MAIL and setup a shared address-book for important company and client contacts. Allow users to access the Global Address List to easily send messages to users within the organization. Boost productivity by sharing contacts and information Global A global calendar can be created for your organization which will notify all respective personnel of meetings and important events. Create a shared calendar for sales and support teams, and distribute important events and scheduling data with your organization. Personal The Personal Address-book allows users to separate personal contacts from Global and Shared contacts. These contacts can only be viewed by the individual user account. SharedThe Shared Address-book adds functionality to share contacts with other users (or groups of users). Shared contacts can be assigned read/write permissions which enables the users with whom the contacts are shared to modify the contact entries directly. Optionally, read-only access can be granted to allow the entry to be viewed by selected users, but can only be modified by the original owner.

Technical Details

Read more about the technical details and features of thinc-MAIL’s Groupware features:

• All Address-book data is stored in MySQL and shared between users (CardDAV coming soon).
• All Calendaring and Groupware functions use open protocols, implementing the following specifications:
• CalDAV RFC 4791.
• iCalendar RFC 2445.
• WebDAV RFC 2518.
• WebDAV Access Control RFC 3744.
• Groupware features can be enabled/disabled on a per-group or system wide basis.
• Full Source-code included. License to customize the Groupware module to fit your needs.

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From the server to your desktop.

Bridge the information gap. With Outlook WebSync, you can keep your desktop and web items synchronized through a hassle-free, unobtrusive interface. Achieve information coherence.

Support Includes:

• Outlook 2007, 2003 and 2000 Support (Windows PC only)
• Calendar/Task data synchronized via a CalDAV backend
• Synchronization of Contact, Calendar and Task data between the Outlook client and thinc-MAIL server
• Support for local accounts created by thinc-MAIL, or any external POP3/IMAP account
• MD5 Checksums ensure data integrity during synchronization
• Simple installation utility for desktop-clients
• Optionally synchronize data between the WebMail server using HTTPS

Benefits

When using the WebMail interface away from the office, your existing Calendar, Tasks & Contacts from Outlook are available via the webmail interface. Synchronize your PDA or PocketPC data with Outlook, and have a copy of all your data synchronized to the WebMail server. Add contacts or schedule events, and the data is automatically synchronized between the desktop client running Outlook and the Addressbook / Scheduler in thinc-MAIL. Utilize WebMail as a central access point for all your data online -– you no longer need multiple desktop clients on different systems.

Technical Details

The thinc-MAIL Outlook Sync Utility is a standalone plugin for Outlook, which is downloaded by the user from the thinc-MAIL website. The installer package will automatically add the Outlook Sync plugin to Outlook, and will prompt the user to supply their thinc-MAIL account login details to synchronize with the server. Outlook sync will compare Calendar/Task/Contact data between the desktop client and the WebMail server via the HTTP/HTTPS protocol. Using MD5 checksums, the plugin utility can identify new or modified data and synchronize the changes between the client and server. Calendaring data is synchronized using the CalDAV server of thinc-MAIL to Outlook, and Contact data is stored in a MySQL database. Using the WebMail interface, users can modify data synchronized with Outlook and the changes will be automatically copied back to the desktop client.

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An inbox free of annoyances.

Tired of slogging through a neverending torrent of spam? Sick of wasting precious time trying to find your emails through the muck of unsolicited content? Let us help.

Filtering features:

Anti Spam Protection The SpamAssassin backend provides blacklist and whitelist functionality, text and header analysis, Bayesian (learning) filters, and DNSBL support. User mailboxes are kept clean of unwanted Spam messages that clutter the filesystem and waste user productivity. Spamassassin is designed and optimized to function under Linux/Unix. Group and User Filtering Email filters can be defined for specific email accounts, groups, and domain names. Extensive logs Email filtering can be logged to facilitate tracking of denied/filtered messages. Using the WebAdmin interface the administrator can track incoming Spam messages and view log file activity graphically. User Level Antispam Settings Using the thinc-MAIL WebMail interface users can define custom antispam settings for their account. Users can choose the level of antispam-filtering, where to route Spam messages, define user-level white/blacklists, and enable Bayesian filtering. Whitelist & Blacklist support The Administrator and/or individual users can define Blacklists -– lists of domain names & email addresses from which undesired mail is known to originate, and should be ignored. Adding a domain name or email address to a Blacklist automatically qualifies messages from those locations as Spam. The Whitelist feature allows the admin to enter trusted domain names & email addresses so that messages from those senders will be bypassed by the anti spam filter. Adding a domain name or email address to a Whitelist ensures that messages from those locations will not be handled as Spam. Bayesian filtering The Bayesian filters identify Spam by searching incoming messages for tokens (words or short character sequences that are commonly found in Spam). As the filter rules qualify messages as Spam, characteristic strings are logged which can be used to identify future instances of undesired content. The filters will be trained automatically as email is delivered to thinc-MAIL. Optionally, users can train the Bayesian filter by moving selected messages to the anti spam folder via the Webadmin interface. DNS Blacklist (DNSBL) support DNSBL is a network of services that provide blacklists of known Spammers. Incoming messages can be checked on the fly against the DNSBL network to determine if the originating address is known to be a source of Spam. Pattern matching engine Messages are parsed through various tests to determine if the message is Spam. Keywords and regular expressions are pattern-matched with incoming emails to identify unwanted messages. The pattern-matching engine is optimized for maximum performance and does not slow down email delivery. Message redirection Email marked as Spam can be diverted in several ways: Messages can be deleted from the system, moved to the anti spam folder for the local recipient’s account, or delivered to the user’s Inbox with the Email subject modified to indicate that the message is Spam. The latter ensures that no legitimate messages are accidentally lost or deleted from the system. Easy to maintainUsing the WebAdmin interface, the admin can easily set up filter rules, monitor the volume of incoming Spam, and quickly blacklist malicious senders.

Interface demo

By utilizing the Anti-Spam features of thinc-MAIL, user accounts can be reliably protected from unwanted Spam messages. See the thinc-MAIL WebAdmin to view an example of the interface which controls and manages the email filtering. Full server reporting is included for Spam messages, and user-level Spam settings configurable via the Webmail interface

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Keep clean and carry on.

At any given day, millions of email viruses are being sent. Thousands of new ones are being created. With thinc-MAIL’s anti-virus features, you can achieve your peace of mind in the world of email.

Advantages of Antivirus support:

• Guard user accounts from malicious viruses
• Eliminate users wasted effort (and productivity) from removing viruses from their computer/servers and lost data
• Protect intellectual property from damage by viruses
• Protect your reputation by stopping the spread of viruses via email to customers/partners

This antivirus software protects against all malicious codes intended for file and application servers running on Linux (and other Unix) platforms. It detects and deletes viruses and malicious codes of all known types.

Virus detection includes:

• Polymorphic or Self-Encrypting Viruses
• Stealth-Viruses
• Email-Viruses
• Viruses for Windows platforms, UNIX, Linux
• Java-Applet Viruses
• Macro Viruses infecting MS Word documents, Excel tables, PowerPoint presentations, Help-files, etc.
• Internet Worms
• Trojans

The thinc-MAIL antivirus engine identifies and deletes malicious virus code signatures from compressed or uncompressed files, attached or inline. With the help of heuristic analysis, previously-unknown virus programs can be detected before infecting user accounts. Daily virus signature database updates are downloaded via the Internet using the embedded auto-update utility.

The Anti-Virus module includes the following:

• Full integration with thinc-MAIL including Web-based Administration
• Native SMTP level scanning via Exim (inbuilt)
• Scanning of incoming and outgoing messages for viruses or malicious code (trojans, worms, etc.).
• Scanning of archived/compressed file attachments.
• Auto-Update of antivirus signature databases via Cron.
• Capability to scan network drives.
• Antivirus Scanner – capable of scanning entire disks.
• Antivirus Daemon – a variation of the antivirus scanner with optimized memory-loading, allowing filtering of data for viruses in real-time.
• Antivirus Monitor – a client application for the Antivirus Daemon. Intercepts file operations performed by the operating system and scans the aliquot parts of the processes for virus signatures.
• Integrity Checker – Tracks content changes on your computer by maintaining a database of CRC checksums and detecting modifications to the filesystem, allowing for superior data integrity management.

Other antivirus engines can be configured for thinc-MAIL via the inbuilt Exim SMTP server (e.g. Norton, McAfee, Sophos, Kaspersky) although the ClamAV engine is recommended since complete Web-administration is included, default integration with thinc-MAIL and commercial support readily available. Daily virus signature database updates are downloaded via the Internet using the embedded auto-update utility.

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