Frequently Asked Questions

Protocols
Q: What messaging protocols are supported in Prevantage Fusion?

Anti spam and Content Filtering
Q: How do the Prevantage Fusion anti-spam features work?
Q: How do we clean up spam if it does get into the mail system
Q: How can we filter and/or capture messages based upon SMTP headers and/or message content?

Anti-virus
Q: Does Prevantage Fusion support virus scanning?
Q: What platforms are supported by the McAfee Virus Scan Plugging?
Q: What 3rd party anti-virus solutions are supported with Prevantage Fusion?

Administration
Q: How do I administer Prevantage Fusion?
Q: Can I define and enforce mailbox quotas?
Q: How do I backup my Prevantage Fusion message store?
Q: Can I recover a single mailbox without recovering entire mail server?
Q: Is there some sort of a backup mechanism built in?

Web Applications
Q: Can I customize the look and feel of the Webmail interface for all my domains?
Q: Do my users have to download Plugins or Controls to access Webmail?
Q: Where are the Webmail HTML files stored and how are they accessed?

Security
Q: How does Prevantage Fusion support secure remote access?
Q: Can I have multiple certificates? For example, on a server with 10 domains, each domain has separate certificates.
Q: Does Prevantage Fusion support secure authentication for user logon?

LDAP
Q: Does Prevantage Fusion have a directory that is "readable and writeable" via LDAP?

Unified Messaging
Q: Describe how Prevantage Fusion can be the central message store for all types of messages?

SMS
Q: Describe how Prevantage Fusion acts as a solution for SMS services?

Architecture
Q: How can I best architect a solution for slow WANs? E.g. in an environment with a distributed domain and the use of servers at those remote locations so the MAPI connector is local speeds (LAN).
Q: What architecture do you recommend for a SMB office where the old PSTN should be integrated but VoIP should be enabled?

Collaboration
Q: How can I share folders?
Q: How can I view the calendar of my colleagues?
Q: How can I enable secretary features like the secretary receives all emails of her boss and can also send emails via the boss's account?
Q: What are the possibilities for integrating Prevantage with an ERP or a Document management system?
Q: Is there a mailbox limit like the 16GB limit of Exchange?

SIP devices
Q: What SIP-based phones are tested and proven with Prevantage Fusion?
Q: What gateways can be recommended for using with Prevantage Fusion?

IP PBX
Q: What do I need to get Prevantage Fusion talking to PSTN?
Q: Besides a gateway for PSTN, what other solutions are available? Virtual number like Voxbone offers .
Q: How can I integrate an existing PSTN telephony system?
Q: How can I integrate fax? I want to send and receive faxes via my client and using Prevantage Fusion.
Q: How can I set up that incoming calls are answered with individual texts, like "for support press 3" etc?
Q: How can I set up conference calls with Prevantage Fusion?

Video
Q: How can I do video conferences with Prevantage Fusion? What clients are recommended?

Applications
Q: How can I build an individual SIP application?

Instant Messaging
Q: How can Prevantage Fusion be used to support Instant Messaging?
Q: What happens when I send an IM to an offline user?
Q: How can I make IM secure?
Q: How can I share applications in IM?
Q: To what other IM users can I communicate?
Q: How can I add a new contact to my buddy list who is not in my network?

Voice Messaging
Q: How does Prevantage Fusion support voice mail applications?
Q: Can we do email notification of voicemail message?

Protocols

Q: What messaging protocols are supported in Prevantage Fusion?

SMTP/ESMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) for relaying messages on the internet.
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) for accessing messages and integrating with 3rd party applications.
POP and RPOP (Post Office Protocol) for retrieving messages from primary server and polling remote servers.
LDAP Directory (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) for white pages and provisioning.
ACAP (Application Configuration Access Protocol) to allow address books to be stored on the server.
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) for system monitoring and administration.
SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security) for security across the network.

Anti-SPAM and Content Filtering

Q: How do the Prevantage Fusion anti-spam features work?
A: The Prevantage Fusion Server has many built-in server side Anti-Spam Options that can help you to deal with unwanted spam:

Prohibiting Unauthorized Relaying - by restricting relay from Client IP Addresses or Client IP Domains.
Relaying for Users without a static IP address - SMTP AUTH method, Read-then-Send method.
Return-Path Address Verification - refusing to receive a message if:
- the Return-Path domain name is an empty string (no domain specified);
- the Return-Path address is routed (via the Server Router) to the ERROR address;
- the Domain Name System does not have MX or A records for the Return-Path domain (an unregistered domain);
- the Domain Name System has an MX record for the Return-Path domain, but it points to an A-record that does not exist (a faked domain);
- the A-record or the highest-priority MX record for the Return-Path domain points to an IP address included into your Blacklisted IP Addresses list;
- the Return-Path domain name is specified as an IP address, and that address is not included into the Client Addresses list.
Blacklisting Offenders - supporting RBLs (Realtime Blackhole List) services to check if an IP address or domain is known as a source of spam.
Spam traps (fake email addresses designed to get onto spam mailing lists) - If your server receives a message, and at least one of its recipients is spamtrap@yourhost or at least one of its recipients is routed to spamtrap, the Server rejects the entire message.
Banning Mail by Header and Body Lines
Filtering Mail - with Server-Wide Rules used to detect unwanted messages and reject, discard, or redirect them.
Sending messages to an external filter for programmable content filtering.

End users who have appropriate rights can also create their own set of Rules to detect unwanted messages and reject, discard, or redirect them.

Q: How do we clean up spam if it does get into the mail system?
A: In Prevantage Fusion all actions are performed after the enqueueing stage. Once a message has passed the actions and passes to the dequeueing stage, in order to optimize efficiency, no further actions can take place.

Q: How can we filter and/or capture messages based upon SMTP headers and/or message content?
A: Prevantage Fusion offers the built-in ability to ban messages based on RFC822 content of message headers and/or message body. Automated Rules can also be used to reject or to capture (copy to predefined mailboxes) certain messages. Messages can also be passed to External Filters for scanning (this is how the anti-virus and content-filtering Plugins are implemented).

Anti-Virus

Q: Does Prevantage Fusion support virus scanning?
A:Prevantage Fusion uses its Plugin technology to integrate various virus-scanning engines. The Prevantage Fusion server starts Plugins as external application running alongside the server.

All messages, regardless of how they are submitted, are scanned. This means that messages between local users are scanned, too. Virus scanning is done before the messages are stored in local message store, or relayed outside, or processed with an internal module.

Q: What Anti-virus Plugins are available for Prevantage Fusion?
A: Prevantage Corporation offers the following product:

Kaspersky Anti-Virus Plugin for Prevantage Fusion
McAfee Anti-Virus Plugin for Prevantage Fusion
Sophos Anti-Virus Plugin for Prevantage Fusion

There are also other Anti-Virus Plugins available from third paries, including solutions from RAE Internet.

Q: What platforms are supported by the McAfee Virus Scan Plugging?
A: Each Plugin supports several platforms. See the Plugin documentation for the details.

Q: Can we develop our own Plugins?
A: Yes. The API for Plugins and other External Filter programs is documented in the Prevantage Fusion Guide

Administration

Q: How do I administer Prevantage Fusion?
A: Prevantage Fusion offers two ways for administrators to work with the system: an intuitive Web-based "Web Admin" interface and a Command Line Interface (CLI)/API. Both support local & remote secure server management.

CLI/API is designed to simplify integration of Prevantage Fusion into any existing management system. Both Perl and Java CLI/API "wrappers" are available, too.
Prevantage Fusion does not require any OS-level command-line operation and/or direct file modification for any administrative task.

Q: Can I define and enforce mailbox quotas?
A: Each Prevantage Fusion account has its own mail store quota. Like other settings, this setting has 2 levels of "default values" - a server-wide (or a cluster-wide) default value, the domain-wide default value (that overrides the server/cluster-wide one), and individual account setting that can override any default value.

An additional setting specifies when the account should stop to receive incoming mail (for example, when it is over 90% of its quota), and what to do with incoming messages in this case (reject immediately or keep in queue for X days, repeating delivery attempts every Y minutes).

Q: How do I backup my Prevantage Fusion message store?
A: The Prevantage Fusion message store allows for "live" backups using any regular backup-restore program. The server does not have to be stopped to do a backup.

Prevantage Fusion will work with any back-up software appropriate to your operating system. Prevantage Fusion requires that no file locking mechanisms are used during the backup process. In the event that file locking is used, the system may be unintentionally brought down or account information corrupted.

Q: Can I recover a single mailbox without recovering entire mail server?
A: The Prevantage Fusion message store is self-recoverable. Each account has its own directory that contains all the mailboxes for that account. This makes per-account recovery very easy.

Q: Is there some sort of a backup mechanism built in?
A: There is nothing built in, however, 95% of the Prevantage Fusion files reside in the Prevantage base directory, which is in a different location depending on the operating system. The only files that are not in this directory are the html files for the web-user and web-admin interface. In short, backing it up can be as simple as backing up one directory, if you decide not to customize the html files. Please note, if you are going to back up the base directory, do not back up any .tmp files found in the queue directory.

Web Applications

Q: Can I customize the look and feel of the Webmail interface for all my domains?
A: The Prevantage Fusion Webmail interface is based on Skins, which are completely customizable: with different skins, each domain hosted on the system can support a different look and feel. International charsets and Unicode support is built-in for customers needing multi-language support.

Q: Do my users have to download Plugins or Controls to access Webmail?
A: The Prevantage Fusion "stock" Webmail Skin is completely HTML-based, and does not use any scripting language and/or applets.

Q: Where are the Webmail HTML files stored and how are they accessed?
A: The files that make up the "default" Webmail interface are stored in the application directory, which is different for every operating system. Customized Webmail interface files are stored in the base directory. You can access all of the files via the WebAdmin interface.

Security

Q: How does Prevantage Fusion support secure remote access?
A: Prevantage Fusion supports secure (SSL/TLS) connections to all TCP/IP services (SMTP, POP, IMAP, ACAP, HTTP, LDAP, POPPWD, etc.). The STARTTLS/STLS commands are supported, too - so regular, clear-text ports can be used for secure communications, too.
Depending on the clients used, "strong encryption" may require special certificate(s) that can be purchased from the "known authorities," such as VeriSign.

Q: Can I have multiple certificates? For example, on a server with 10 domains, each domain has separate certificates.
A: Certificates are used when the SSL connection is being established. During the connection, the only information that the server knows is the IP address being accessed by the client. At this point it has to pick up the "correct" certificate. The result is that each domain that needs its own certificate should also have its own IP address.

There is no problem with multiple certificates in a cluster: the load balancer can distribute incoming connections for the IP address 11.22.33.44 to the 2 front-end addresses 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2. Since there is a shared domain "client.com", its domain settings can have a certificate that is assigned the IP addresses of both 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2.

Accordingly, whichever front-end the connection comes from will detect that it is a request for connection to the client.com domain and will send back the certificate for this domain.

This means that if 10 domains with certificates are needed, then there must be 10 different IP addresses on each front-end. If customer uses DNS load balancing, where all front-end addresses are "real" Internet addresses, it can be a problem. If Load Balancers are used as above, so that all front-end addresses are "virtual" in the 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x local network, then there will be no problem.

Q: Does Prevantage Fusion support secure authentication for user logon?
A: Prevantage Fusion supports the standard SASL (secure AUTH) methods -CRAM-MD5, DIGEST-MD5, legacy methods (APOP), as well as non-standard SASL methods (Microsoft NTLM).

An account-level setting called "Require Secure Login" forces the user to use either a secure AUTH method, or to use a clear-text method, but only via a secure (SSL/TLS) connection.

LDAP

Q: Does Prevantage Fusion have a directory that is "readable and writeable" via LDAP?
A: Prevantage Fusion includes a high-speed Meta-Directory component. This component supports multiple local and remote units, each with its own schema and data layout. The included LDAP component provides full-featured access to the Directory.

Prevantage Fusion also provides legacy "Directory-based Domains," as well as the modern "LDAP Provisioning" methods.

Unified Messaging

Q: Describe how Prevantage Fusion can be the central message store for all types of messages?
A: Prevantage Fusion provides the backbone for a robust communication platform, optimized to expand into emerging wireless and voice markets. Because of its open, standards-based architecture, Prevantage Fusion acts as a single message store for a variety of integrated messaging applications. Many types of content including faxes, voice data, and Short Message Service (SMS) text messages are processed efficiently and reliably.

Industry experts agree that the foundation for successful unified messaging is a central IMAP Message Store and Directory. Prevantage Corporation provides the most reliable and scalable infrastructure upon which you can add an array of services including email, wireless and voice messaging - offering users access to different kinds of messages from any device - Web, phone, PDA, desktop.

Modern fax, voice systems and wireless messaging use an IMAP server instead of a file server. Meaning, instead of storing received fax/voice as a file on a file server and then implementing some home-made directory and "mailboxes" that can keep only those wireless, fax and/or voice messages, those external applications now work with IMAP servers. For example, when a fax/voice message is received for the user "john", the application connects to the IMAP server, converts the message into one of the Internet standard formats (tiff/gif for fax, .wav for voice, etc), composes a standard RFC822 header for the message (date, from, to, etc.) and stores that resulting RFC-formatted messages in the user mailbox, using the IMAP APPEND command.

Products implementing voice mail also connect to the proper account and open the proper mailbox via IMAP and then read the info from that location so they can send it to the user. If it's a voice message, they decode the sound back from .wav, if it's a text message they use Text=To-Speech to speak the message to the user.

SMS

Q: Describe how Prevantage Fusion acts as a solution for SMS services?
A: Prevantage Fusion is commonly used as a platform for SMS/MMS systems. It makes sense to use a hi-end IMAP server and store SMS messages as email messages in mailboxes. The IMAP protocol is Internet Mail Access Protocol - i.e. it can do many operations with messages - it can add messages to a mailbox, retrieve them, mark, delete, and much more. For example, it can report the message structure (plain text, html, text with attachments, etc) so the SMS system can decide if the message is to be sent to a wireless device, or a "real" mailer is needed to read it. IMAP allows a user or a program (like an SMS server) to search the mailbox and to get information about the message source without reading the message, allowing the user to retrieve the message in parts.

So Prevantage Fusion's primary function would be as account information storage and message store. It would perform the following functions:

keep the passwords and settings for IM and/or SMS users
store all SMS messages received for the given user
retrieve all (or some) SMS messages for the given user (and send them to that user via wireless connections).
mark messages that are read, answered, etc.
delete messages (when the user confirmed the receipt of them, or when user has asked to delete them, etc).

Architecture

Q: How can I best architect a solution for slow WANs? E.g. in an environment with a distributed domain and the use of servers at those remote locations so the MAPI connector is local speeds (LAN).
A: The distributed domains based on directory routing should be used in this case:
http://www.prevantage.com/Fusion/CentralDir.html#Routing
If the number of accounts is not significant - forwarders can be used instead (for sending messages inside of that distributed domain). If there's a provisioning system in place, the approach with forwarders may be the preferred one.

Q: What architecture do you recommend for a SMB office where the old PSTN should be integrated but VoIP should be enabled?
A: Any SIP-to-PSTN router can be used for that. For higher number of users Cisco routers are recommended. For the small number of users/lines the simple ATA devices can be used.

Collaboration

Q: How can I share folders?
A: Please see:
http://www.prevantage.com/Fusion/HowTo.html#Shared.

Q: How can I view the calendar of my colleagues?
A: The Calendar folders can be shared as any other folders, so please see:
http://www.prevantage.com/Fusion/HowTo.html#Shared

After the mailbox is shared, you will need to connect to it either using WebUser interface or Outlook MAPI Connector:
http://www.prevantage.com/Fusion/Mailboxes.html#Subscription
http://www.prevantage.com/Fusion/MAPI.html#Advanced.

Q: How can I enable secretary features like the secretary receives all emails of her boss and can also send emails via the boss's account?
A: She will need to log into her bosses account to send messages via the boss's account. More options will be available with the new version of the MAPI Connector (1.2.1), which also requires Prevantage 5.1.

Q: What are the possibilities for integrating Prevantage with an ERP or a Document management system?
A: It all depends on the ERP and Document management system. If they support standard protocols (like IMAP), they will work. That mainly depends on the hooks available in the ERP for integration with external storage and transport providers. Prevantage Fusion supports IMAP to access mail messages, HTTP to access files, LDAP to access the directory data. If these systems support standard protocols, they can be integrated with Prevantage Fusion. Prevantage Fusion 5.1 will also provide the new unified protocol for e-mail and instant messaging (XIMSS), which may simplify such integration efforts.

Q: Is there a mailbox limit like the 16GB limit of Exchange?
A: There's the 2Gb limit per mailbox(folder). There can be many 2Gb mailboxes in one account.

SIP devices

Q: What SIP-based phones are tested and proven with Prevantage Fusion?
A: The list of phones tested with Prevantage Fusion, and some fixes for them can be found on the following page:
http://www.prevantage.com/SIP/SIPProblems.html.
The number of available SIP-phones is so big, so we cannot test them all. If your phone is not on the list please configure it to connect to Prevantage Fusion. If you have any problems using it, please contact support@prevantage.com with the Prevantage Fusion logs illustrating the problem, the name of the device, and the version of the software used.

Q: What gateways can be recommended for using with Prevantage Fusion?
A: We didn't test a lot of gateways. Cisco and Sipura gateways proved to work well. If many lines are used, we'd recommend Cisco.

IP PBX

Q: What do I need to get Prevantage Fusion talking to PSTN?
A: Please see:
http://www.prevantage.com/Fusion/SIP.html#ExtGateway.

Q: Besides a gateway for PSTN, what other solutions are available? Virtual number like Voxbone offers .
A: That "virtual number" is a SIP-to-PSTN gateway actually. So, that's not some other method. No other solutions. Prevantage Fusion doesn't support PCI based ISDN cards directly. Some software or hardware solution is required to act as a gateway between Prevantage Fusion and PSTN.

Q: How can I integrate an existing PSTN telephony system?
A: Some software or hardware solution is needed to act as a gateway between Prevantage Fusion and SIP devices, and PSTN. Devices connected to Prevantage Fusion will see the PSTN network via that gateway, and vice versa.

Q: How can I integrate fax? I want to send and receive faxes via my client and using Prevantage Fusion.
A: Not available in Prevantage Fusion right now. A positive experience with Hylafax is reported by the clients.

Q: How can I set up that incoming calls are answered with individual texts, like "for support press 3" etc?
A: That can be done using the built-in Auto-Attendant. Please see:
http://www.prevantage.com/Fusion/PBX.html#AutoAttendant.

Q: How can I set up conference calls with Prevantage Fusion?
A: Please see:
http://www.prevantage.com/Fusion/PBX.html#ConferenceCenter.

Video

Q: How can I do video conferences with Prevantage Fusion? What clients are recommended?
A: Video conferencing is not supported yet by Prevantage Fusion (this is planned for implementation). Two devices can use Prevantage Fusion as a SIP relay to relay video however.

Applications

Q: How can I build an individual SIP application?
A: PBX applications can be built using the CG/PL programming language. Please see its description and specifications:
http://www.prevantage.com/Fusion/PBXApp.html.

Instant Messaging

Q: How can Prevantage Fusion be used to support Instant Messaging?
A: Prevantage Fusion is an IM Server with Presence aggregation for multiple clients. Prevantage Fusion currently supports the SIP protocol for IM clients and presence status on some devices such as Polycom phones. IM client's you may want to try are Windows Messenger 5.x with SIP capabilities (not msn Messenger), Windows Messenger for OSX, and the SJlabs softclient.

All you need to do is to download Windows Messenger version 5.x and set it up to use SIP communication services. Then point your IM server to your Prevantage Fusion server (using tcp or TLS) on the advanced settings. Your Prevantage Fusion users and authentication are the same as your Prevantage Fusion users. Other external users should be able to see your presence if they add you to their buddies list. Prevantage Fusion has a built in Session Border Controller that will handle most near and far end NAT traversal for the clients.

Q: What happens when I send an IM to an offline user?
A: Your email client e.g. Outlook opens a new email window and enters the SIP / email address of the recipient automatically.

Q: How can I make IM secure?
A: It depends on the client used for IM. From the Prevantage Fusion's side you need to install and enable the domain certificate:
http://www.prevantage.com/Fusion/PKI.html It can be either self-signed or received from some trusted authority.

In case of the self-signed certificate and Windows Messenger you may need to add the site certificate to the trusted ones in the Internet Explorer. With these requirements met, the peers can use secure (TLS) connections to the Prevantage Fusion server, thus the entire session will be secure. This may vary with different IM clients, though.

Q: How can I share applications in IM?
A: Again - It depends on the IM client used. Windows messenger has a special menu for that.
When either peer is located behind a NAT firewall, opening additional MS-specific ports on the firewall may be necessary (e.g. TCP port 1503).

Q: To what other IM users can I communicate?
A: You can communicate with any other users using SIP clients for communication.

Prevantage Fusion 5.1 will also support the XMPP protocol making it possible to contact users using the Jabber protocol.

Q: How can I add a new contact to my buddy list who is not in my network?
A: What does "not on my network" means? Usually you add the email address of a person to the list, and if he or she uses some SIP application, you will see them online.

There are also special gateways that can be used to connect users between two different networks (I know one for gtalk, but with jabber available right within Prevantage Fusion it may be not needed).

Voice Messaging

Q: How does Prevantage Fusion support voice mail applications?
A: Yes, Prevantage Fusion is used to support third party voice applications. As the backbone, Prevantage Fusion's function is account information storage and message storage if voice mail messages were stored as a wav attachment to an email message.

Example:
Instead of storing received fax/voice as a file on a file server and then implementing some home-made directory and "mailboxes" that can keep only those wireless, fax and/or voice messages, those products use IMAP servers: when a fax/voice message is received for the user "john", they connect to the IMAP server, convert the message into one of the Internet standard formats (tiff/gif for fax, .wav for voice, etc), compose a standard RFC822 header for the message (date, from, to, etc), and store that resulting RFC-formatted messages in the user mailbox, using the IMAP APPEND command.

Q: Can we do email notification of voicemail message?
A: Yes, but this would rely on the integration with the Voice Mail system. It would send an alert to Prevantage Fusion to compose and send the notification.