ITA Secure Messaging uses sophisticated algorithms that use artificial intelligence to determine to
capture junk messages. These techniques deliver a 99% accuracy rate in separating Spam messages from good.
Some of the techniques used by ITA Secure Messaging are:
The ITA Secure Messaging edition can work with any SMTP compliant email server, including but not limited to:
Others...
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Is there any restriction on number of emails processed
No. There is no limit on number of emails processed.
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What platforms are supported
ITA Secure Messaging can be installed on many operating systems including:
- Windows NT 4.0, XP, 2000, 2003 or newer.
- Linux
- Solaris
- Mac OS X
- HP-UX
- IBM AIX
- BSD
- Other java enabled platforms.
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Can I use ITA Secure Messaging to block viruses
Yes. You can stop all email based virus/worms that through ITA Secure Messaging
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What do you mean by Rules Engine and Connector
Rules Engine is the actual processing unit in ITA Secure Messaging. An email can come in from multiple sources to the Rules Engine,
which then runs user defined rules upon the message and ultimately assigns a score to that message.
Following servers run within the Rules Engine.
- SMTP Proxy Server
- SMTP Staging Server
- A web server for admin console
- A connector server for processing requests for live monitor
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Do I have to install the Rules Engine on the same machine
where my Email Server is running
No. Although we recommend that you install ITA Secure Messaging on a dedicated machine, it is not required.
You do not have to change any configuration to your email server if ITA Secure Messaging is installed on a dedicated
machine. You will, however, have to change your firewall settings to route port 25 to the machine where
ITA Secure Messaging is running.
If you decide to run ITA Secure Messaging on the same machine where your corporate email server is running,
you will have to modify the settings of your SMTP server so it listens of a port other than 25, such as
2500. This change is required because two programs cannot listen on the same TCP/IP port bound to the same network
adapter.
In either case every email message that comes in through your corporate firewall will
be routed to ITA Secure Messaging, which will run it through its rules engine and finally pass it to your corporate
email server.
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How many emails can ITA Secure Messaging process simulataneously?
ITA Secure Messaging is designed to handle massive scalability requirements. Although each email that comes
into the Rules Engine can take an average of 200 - 300 ms, multiple threads can process these emails
simultaneously. These threads come from a pool of threads that the Rules Engine manages internally.
ITA Secure Messaging has been throughly tested for heavy load and stress. ITA Secure Messaging's
Rules engine uses multi-threaded architecture that can handle thousands of messages per second.
During our test we found that its not the CPU or memory, but network that becomes a bottleneck - you cannot
open more 65536 TCP/IP sockets on a machine, which is a theoritical limit. The actual number is much smaller
than 65536.
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After I installed ITA Secure Messaging I noticed that I am getting far more
spam messages than what I used to get. Why?
This is a perception - fact of the matter is that you are getting same amount of junk as you were getting before. The
only difference is that now you have a count.
There is, however, one factor that contributes to this perception:
Some email server, such as Microsoft Exchange, will accept an email from a sender even if the
recipient name is invalid. For example, lets say your domain name is xyz.com. If someone sends
an email to someinvaliduser@xyz.com, this email will be accepted. Since there is no
user on your server by that name it will eventually end up in the BADMAIL directory.
Since ITA Secure Messaging intercepts all incoming messages, you see messages that normally don't belong
to any user's INBOX. This gives administrators an impression that they are getting a lot more emails
than before.
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Does ITA Secure Messaging scan both in-bound and out-bound messages?
Yes.
ITA Secure Messaging comes with two SMTP servers. Depending on your network configuration you can either use
one or both. For more information on how to use it for outbound emails, refer to the How To Guide.
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How do I know if the Rules Engine is running?
There are a couple of ways:
- Bring up the Control Panel. If the traffic light is green, Rules Engine is running. Note that
the control panel only works on the same machine where Rules Engine is installed
- Bring up the Admin console. If you get to the login screen, Rules Engine is running
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I cannot access Admin Console. My browser says "Page not found"?
Make sure that the Rules Engine is running. Besides checking emails, the Rules Engine has an
embedded web server which is required to access the Admin Console.
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I cannot restore emails. What should I do?
ITA Secure Messaging has a built-in SMTP server embedded into it. Whenever you restore an email, it uses this
server to send out emails. All emails gets queued in the $ITA_SECURE_MESSAGING_DIR/OutgoingMailQueue directory and will only get deleted if:
- Email is successfully sent
- The server tried to send email 20 times and was unsuccessful. In this case that email is considered bad and will
be deleted.
Make sure your restored email is not sitting in the $ITA_SECURE_MESSAGING_DIR/OutgoingMailQueue directory for long time.
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What TCP/IP ports are used by ITA Secure Messaging?
The following table lists all the ports
| TCP 25 | This is for SMTP and is only used in ITA Secure Messaging |
| TCP 4948 | Used by Rules Engine and Control Panel to communicate |
| TCP 4949 | Rules Engine listens on this port to find out if another
instance of the program is running. This port is also used for Spam Simulation |
| TCP 7860 | Rules Engine listens on this port for Admin Console |
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I have installed ITA Secure Messaging but none of my junk emails are getting quarantined?
Make sure that:
If you see emails in live monitor, you need to tigthen your email rules to capture the emails
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I see lot of messages in the OutboundQueue, why are they sitting there?
Most common reason for this problem is that ITA Secure Messaging is unable to resolve a domain name via DNS.
ITA Secure Messaging by default uses the DNS that is configured for your operating system. You can specify a different
value for a DNS server through ITA Secure Messaging's Admin Console (click Modify Configuration on the main menu).
Some email servers are installed on the same machine where a DNS server is also running. Since your email server
knows the domain it handles, it does not have to query a DNS to find an MX record. In this case it is
quite possible that there is no MX record configured for your domain in the DNS server. ITA Secure Messaging requires an entry
for MX record in order to send outbound emails. You have two choices:
- Modify your DNS to include an MX record for your domain
- Add the domain name in the hosts.txt file in your config directory
If DNS is not the problem, check ITA Secure Messaging's log file in the logs directory to find out the exact cause
of the problem.
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What is hosts.txt file?
ITA Secure Messaging looks for this file to resolve domain names. This file is local to ITA Secure Messaging and
is not related to hosts.conf on UNIX or hosts file on NT. It provides a convenient way to avoid
a DNS lookup. Here is an example:
#This is a comment
#Any line that begins with a # is considered a comment
xyz.com 192.168.1.1
ijk.com 199.199.199.199
This file is used to resolve both MX record and A record for a DNS. Considering the above example,
if ITA Secure Messaging wants to send an email to someone@xyz.com, it will send this message to
192.168.1.1 provided an SMTP server is listening.
This file does not exist when you install ITA Secure Messaging. However, if created ITA Secure Messaging will use it.
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Is there a way to forward ALL outbound messages to another SMTP server on my network?
Yes, put the following line in your hosts.txt file, which is located in the config directory. If a file is
not there create one.
#This is a comment
#Any line that begins with a # is considered a comment
ALLDOMAINS 192.168.1.1
This will send all out bound emails to an SMTP server whose IP address is 192.168.1.1.
IMPORTANT: Make sure that this SMTP server allows message relaying. If relaying is off
no message that is destined for a domain outside your company will be able to receive emails. We
also suggest that you block port 25 (smtp) on your firewall so that no one on the Internet can use
this SMTP server.
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