Webmail
From DreamHost
Dreamhost uses the PHP-based Webmail software package SquirrelMail.
You can check your webmail by going to https://webmail.YOURDOMAIN.com (or .net, or whatever your site is). This is a great way for checking your email remotely from any location that offers internet access!
Please note: using the https:// (secure) version may trigger a security warning about domain name mismatches, but this can safely be ignored.
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Setting Up Email (Addresses)
Checking for New Mail
SquirrelMail, by default, will not automatically check for new mail if you leave it open.
- To check for new mail manually, click refresh folder list or the INBOX (near the top of the frame on the left side of the screen).
- To set this up to "refresh" the message list, go to Options - Folder Preferences, Auto Refresh Folder List and select the amount of time to refresh the folder list. Click Submit to save this change.
File Attachments
Because the webmail system is written in PHP, the maximum attachment size is inherited from the "upload_max_filesize" value set in the PHP configuration file on the server. Currently, that value is set to 7 MB. DreamHost has set this limit as a security feature for its PHP users.
Junk Mail
Error Messages
IMAP/SSL Domain Mismatch Errors
If you try to use IMAP/SSL to access mail at "mail.yourdomain.com", you will be presented with a "domain mismatch" warning. This is because DreamHost's IMAP SSL Certificate is for mail.dreamhost.com. For some users, setting your IMAP server to mail.dreamhost.com may work to avoid this error. However, not all users can log into the mail.dreamhost.com mailserver. If you cannot log into mail.dreamhost.com, reset your IMAP server to mail.yourdomain.com and look for a way to turn off the error. You should only turn off this error if you trust that the server your are connecting to is the correct server. If you blindly trust unmatching SSL certificates, you can easily be tricked by a malicious certificate.
If you know what a "hosts" file is and have access to edit the one on your computer, you can add the IP of mail.yourdomain.com to your hosts file and point mail.dreamhost.com at it. YMMV if you ever need to access anything that's actually located on mail.dreamhost.com, but I haven't run across anything yet, personally.
In some mail clients, you can turn off the warning about a domain mismatch. For Mozilla Thunderbird, check out this extension which adds a box to the warning dialog box to ignore that warning only. There are solutions to other clients as well. If you have one, please list it here.
The Evolution e-mail client will not even attempt to communicate with mail.dreamhost.com over IMAP/TLS unless you create aforementioned entry in the /etc/hosts file so that mail.dreamhost.com points to the IP address of mail.YOURDOMAIN.com. Evolution will simply fail to negotiate a SSL connection.
Alternatives
Consensus seems to be that squirrelmail doesn't cut it. Vote for changes at dreamhost and help explore alternatives below. Using an alternate webmail client may not allow you to access your "Junk Mail" folder if you have spam filtering enabled.
client change
It is possible to set up any web-based IMAP mail client as a replacement for the default SquirrelMail interface. Some alternatives are:
- RoundCube (now an option on your Dreamhost control panel)
- OpenWebMail
SquirrelMail
Dreamhost's default SquirrelMail install is slightly lacking in features (though it definitely is stable). You can install your own copy of SquirrelMail, but unfortunately you would need to talk to a tech in order to use the "webmail" subdomain. On the other hand, you can easily install it to either another subdomain, or perhaps in a subfolder of an existing domain. Once the installation is done, you will notice right away that a newer default install of SquirrelMail can give you quite a few more features, and you can also tweak all of the settings if you are so inclined. SquirrelMail may not have fancy-pants features like RoundCube's AJAX, but it does the job, and with the proper set of plugins (by running /config/conf.pl), you can get a very good webmail client out of SquirrelMail - don't count the squirrel out just yet!
Gmail
I have been extremely happy using gmail my primary interface when dealing with mail addressed to my dreamhosted domains. Using this technique, emails appear to be received and sent from your domain, but all email management is completed at gmail.
Oddly enough, you are required to have a Gmail address to sign up for Gmail for your domain. If you do not have a Gmail account, you can register for one from the link provided below. To learn more about Gmail for your domain, visit:
Once you are approved for Gmail for your domain (which can take 7-10 days when I tried in September 2006), you will need to change the MX records on your domain. This is an 'advanced' setting at some registars, so they will give you ample warnings that you can mess this up and not receive any e-mails.
Once you complete this process, you will need to make a few more edits at Google. Your hosted domain would be http://mail.google.com/hosted/domain.com/. You will login with the admin account and create users and make a few more setup changes.
Give it about an hour or two, and you are now live with Gmail for your domain.
The biggest thing you need to do to configure your Dreamhost account is to change the Custom MX. Google has instructions specifically for Dreamhost:
http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=48242#E
Issues with Dreamhost E-mail Forwarding and Gmail
Forwarding "catch-all" accounts to non-Dreamhost hosted addresses is not allowed. The small benefits of allowing it do not currently justify the considerable filtering resources required to ensure Dreamhost would not forward spam.
If you are forwarding individual e-mail addresses (i.e. "Forward-Only"), you cannot test forwarding from the account you are forwarding to. Those e-mails will be ignored, not bounced.
If you are hosting an e-mail domain on Dreamhost using Gmail as your webmail interface and you are forwarding e-mail from another Dreamhost-hosted e-mail domain, then you will need to make some changes for the forwarding to happen correctly.
Say, for example, you have an e-mail address paul@dreamhostforwarded.com that forwards to paul@gmailforemail.com. (You have set up gmailforemail.com to use Gmail as its webmail interface, but the rest of the domain is still hosted by Dreamhost.) Any e-mail sent to paul@dreamhostforwarded.com will be sent to gmailforemail.com internally and will never talk to your Google MX servers, and therefore will never reach your Gmail inbox.
For the forwarding to work, you need to:
- Delete all the e-mail addresses on gmailforemail.com.
- Delete all the e-mail addresses on dreamhostforwarded.com.
- Quickly re-add your custom MX entries for Google to gmailforemail.com. (Dreamhost resets your MX records when you delete all your e-mail addresses, and you have to re-update the MX records.)
Then your e-mail will forward properly to your Gmail webmail interface.
Yahoo! Mail
You can also use the new Yahoo! Mail as your primary interface:
- Either using the dreamhost control panel or procmail, forward all email to your Yahoo! account. Procmail combined with disposable addresses at Yahoo! can help you file your incoming email automatically.
- Under 'Mail Options->Accounts,' add a new mail account with the email address of your Dreamhost-hosted domain. Click on the new account and select 'Make Default.'
You will now notice your email in the From drop-down when you compose a new message.
The junk mail filter at Yahoo! seems to be better than what I was used to with SpamAssassin. Security and privacy are concerns.
Round Cube
The dreamhost control panel now has a beta option to use Round Cube for your webmail instead of squirrel. One side-effect is the loss of control over your junk mail settings (if SpamAssassin is being used), however you can still access the controls through Squirrel Mail by logging in with your full address (name@yourdomain.com) at http://webmail.dreamhost.com.
