In order to use the web-based interface for setting up message filters, a vacation notice, or a forwarding address, you must have a web client and TCP/IP access to the PMDF system. Your messages must also be delivered to the native message store (VMS mailbox) on the PMDF system, or to a PMDF popstore or PMDF MessageStore account on the PMDF system.

The web form asks you for your e-mail address and your password; you need to provide this information in order to set up or change your mailbox filters.

To connect to the interface with your web browser, you normally open the URL

http://host:7633/mailbox_filters/

In place of host, use the actual IP host name of the system running PMDF, on which your messages are delivered. Your system administrator may have chosen to configure the web interface port to be a port other than 7633; if so, then you need to specify that other port number in place of 7633 in the above URL. Check with your system administrator if you are not sure of the exact URL to use.

Once connected to the introductory web page, links to help and various mailbox filtering activities may be followed.

3.2.1 Web Interface Features

The web interface allows you to set up eight distinct message filters: four to identify messages to always keep, the Accept filters; four to identify messages to always throw away, the Discard filters. The Accept and Discard filters operate on envelope and header source addresses, header destination addresses, and phrases or words appearing in the Subject: header line or body of the message. The eight filters are thus known by the names Accept From, Accept To, Accept Subject, Accept Body, Discard From, Discard To, Discard Subject, and Discard Body.

The web interface also allows you to set up a forwarding address. When you have a forwarding address set up, all of your mail that you have decided to keep with your Accept filters will be sent to that address instead of being delivered to your local account. Note that the Accept and Discard filters are applied first, and the vacation notice (if any) is also sent first, before the message is forwarded.

The web interface also allows you to set up a vacation notice. Set up a vacation notice when you want to send an automatic reply to mail messages that you receive. The reply notifies the sender that you are on vacation or otherwise away for an extended period of time and may not respond to your mail until you return. The web interface allows you to enable or disable the vacation notice feature, to specify the subject and text that is included in the vacation notice, and to set up some advanced options.

PMDF keeps a history of which addresses it has sent the vacation notice to, and does not send another vacation notice to that same address unless

• you change the text or subject of your vacation notice
• you enable the vacation notice feature after it has been disabled
• the number of days that you specify in the web interface has passed

Note that PMDF will not send the vacation notice if it determines that the message was received through a mailing list.

3.2.2 Example Web Page Displays

Figure 3-1 shows a sample Mailbox Filters home page---the first page you will see when you connect to the mailbox filter URL. This home page has links to other pages which implement each of the mailbox filters features: Accept filters, Discard filters, vacation notice, and forwarding address.

For instance, you can click on the "Modify Discard From filter" link displayed on the mailbox filter home page to move to the Discard From filter page, shown in Figure 3-2. (If this is the first page you go to from the mailbox filter home page, note that you will be asked to authenticate yourself before your Discard From filter page will be shown; a dialogue box will pop up asking you to provide your e-mail address and password.) The example in Figure 3-2 is for a user who has configured his mailbox filter to reject all messages from hotmail.com or cyberpromo.com.

As another example, clicking on the "Modify Vacation Notice" link displayed on the mailbox filter home page moves you to the Vacation Notice page, shown in Figure 3-3.

Help is available on the various mailbox filtering pages; for instance, clicking on the Help button in the lower right corner of the Discard From filter page will move you to a help page describing how to use the Discard From filters; an excerpt of that help page is shown in Figure 3-4.

Figure 3-1 Mailbox Filter Home Page

Figure 3-2 Discard From Filter

Figure 3-3 Vacation Notice

Figure 3-4 Excerpt of the Discard From Filter Help Page