Return to The Tomaszewski Family Public Home Page
Prior to registering our private domain (which caused us to make the internal network a private subdomain, home.Tomaszewski.net) all our mail came in thru one ISP account (Tomaszew@Concentric.net). We all had internal accounts and the Mailtron Gateway sorted mail into the accounts based on the optional name prefix. This service was continued after registering our domain, combining mail from both external servers into the appropriate internal accounts.
For internal testing or mail exchange, the browser can be reconfigured to use the internal server, even when the internet is unavailable. Mail service to and from the Internet requires our Vicom Gateway to be connected (which occurs automatically when we bring up our browser), but Intranet addresses always work). Some currently defined addresses and some format variations that work.
How it works
Vicom Internet Gateway provides a DHCP Server for Ethernet connected machines, Localtalk TCP/IP, and dial-up access to our ISP, "Concentric.net", as well as being the internal Router (see the Server config page for details). One or more HTTP Servers exist behind the Vicom Gateway.
Behind the Vicom Gateway we have a DNS server (Apple MacDNS) establishing a private (unregistered) domain, "home.Tomaszewski.net", also known as an Intranet. The HTTP servers and the Email Server are defined in the DNS. The Email Server uses "smtp.home.Tomaszewski.net" to accept mail and "pop3.home.Tomaszewski.net" for clients to pick up their mail. It is defined to pass mail for domain "Concentric.net" to our ISP's "smtp.concentric.net", but this should be the only entry in the Eudora table (delete the default "*" entry) so that we send to the right server at our ISP for an internal user. Client machine TCP/IP settings point at the internal DNS, which has the ISP's DNS(s) defined as a host(s) to pass on any names it can't resolve (see the Client config page for details). Client machine TCP/IP settings also point to the Vicom Gateway for Routing (and DHCP Server, if not manually configured because of being used as a fixed address server). We use the free Eudora Mail Server.
The Mailtron Gateway connects to "pop3.Concentric.net" and picks any up mail for "Tomaszew@Concentric.net", and mail for the individual accounts at Tomaszewski.net. Mailtron has been told it is picking up mail for domain "Tomaszewski.org". Since this domain is not registered or known to the Internet, no mail can be expected from it. Name mappings for each registered user on the internal mail server must be set up so that the Gateway will recognize individual names, as in "Kreigh" and forward/translate it to "Kreigh@Tomaszewski.net" and deliver it to "smtp.home.Tomaszewski.net" using a contains rule. Additional rules are defined for any mailing lists each individual has subscribed to so the PostMaster does not need to manually forward them (PostMaster receives any mail not captured by a rule; most SPAMM ends up there instead of in the individual accounts where your kids may see it - it helps in stopping SPAMM).
The password Netscape may prompt for on picking up mail is that for the internal mail account; the initial password is the name on the account. Only the Mailtron Gateway (and the Administrator logon) uses the ISP password to pick up mail from the ISP account of "Tomaszew@Concentric.net".
We have also been able to run a list server (testing only) behind the gateway, out of one ISP account, using the prefix to sort into internal accounts for subscriptions and postings.