Chapter 6. Site Administration

Accessing Site Administration

The Web Administration Interface is designed to provide a convenient means of administering M-Store remotely. The administrative functions include managing domains, users, and mailboxes. They are, in essence, a web-based implementation of the command line administration utility (msadm_tclsh).

To access the interface, use a standards-based Java Script enabled web browser and means of connecting to the M-Store domain. The administration tools URL is determined by the location where the httpd server was installed. To access the interface, simply provide a URL that points to this domain. For example:

httpd was installed on

www.yoursite.com

means the URL for the Administration Interface is https://www.yoursite.com/msadm/

To ensure a secure session, please use https://... in your URL. Failure to do so may result in an insecure session.

Once at the Administration site, the following is displayed:

Figure 6-1. Web Administration Tools Welcome Page


Please choose the Site Administration link.

Each administration task has a predefined permission level. Only the Site Administrator has access to all other permission levels, while users can only change their own passwords.

Table 6-1. Administration Permission Levels

Administration Task

Permission Level

Site Administration

Site Administrator, Domain Administrator, User

Domain Administration

Domain Administrator, User

Change User Password

User

After logging in, it is not possible to leave the secure administration area without either logging out or causing the secure session to be terminated. The login cookie is deleted automatically on logout as a security measure against unauthorized access. When finished, please logout using the Logout link in the navigation area. Even though the login cookie is destroyed by default when the browser is closed, it may persist under certain unforeseen conditions such as an application crash. So it is strongly recommended that the Logout link be used every time to log out of a session.

The web administration defaults file, which specifies all the configuration options for all tools, is found in:

/usr/local/md/libdata/httpd/htdocs/msadm/config/defaults.php3

For convenience, a URL may be bookmarked to provide direct access to the required administration level. The following table provides the default URL to each administration level.

Default Administration URLs

https://yourhostname/msadm/site

https://yourhostname/msadm/domain

https://yourhostname/msadm/user/change_password.php3


Site Administration

The Site Administration page allows an administrator to alter the Domain Management settings, and modify lower level administrators and their passwords. Navigation is performed via the navigation area on the left side of the page.

The following steps need to have taken place in order to use this tool. (If one of the included setup wizards was used, it is unlikely that this list of steps will be need to be reviewed. If installation was completed without a wizard then the following steps need to be completed with the msadm_tclsh command line interpreter):

  1. An administrative domain was created.

  2. The name of the administrative domain is specified in the ms.conf file.

  3. The Site Administrator was added to the administrative domain. This is accomplished by adding a user, then adding that user as a site administrator.

  4. An authentication account was added for the Site Administrator.

    Figure 6-2. Site Administration Login Page


Enter your Auth ID (Site Administrator Username) and Password (Site Administrator Password). If authentication is successful, a secure session is established. Please use Logout when your session is complete (see Logout, “ Accessing Site Administration”).

Domain Management

This page is reached via the Domain Management link (located in the navigation area on the left side of the page) on the Site Administration page. Here, one can add, delete and change quotas for all the listed domains. A checklist of existing domains is provided including the Quota Usage(MB) and Quota Limit (MB). The number of Domains listed per page can be set in the defaults.php3 file.

Navigation between domain pages is accomplished with the navigation arrows in the upper right hand portion of the page. If one wishes to jump to a particular domain list page, one can enter the page number in the area between the navigation arrows and hit the Enter key (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

 

 

 

 

 

One can also filter the domain names listed by entering a search pattern in the  Apply Filter field (Figure 2 above). The filter uses standard simple pattern matching. For example: *c* matches north.ca and messagingdirect.com, but not noseehere.net.

The sort order of the domains listed can be reversed by clicking on the Sort Order Icon next to the Domain List column.

Figure 6-3. Sort Order Icon (Domain Management)


Adding Domains

Click on the Add Domain button to view the Add Domain dialogue. Enable Domain is selected by default. The domain name is the name of the domain to be to added. For example: mail2.foo.com. If you wish to create, but not enable the domain at this time, deselect Enable Domain. If Allow Anonymous Login is selected, any user can log into the domain using anonymous as a login name. The Quota Size can also be set at this time. Until a quota is set, no mail can be received under normal conditions.

Figure 6-4. Add Domain Dialog


Deleting Domains

To delete a domain, first select the target domain from the provided list by clicking in the checkbox next to the named domain. Then, click on the Delete Domains button. Click on OK to delete the selected domain. Note that this cannot be undone. All M-Store related data is deleted in the selected domain.

Changing Quotas

To modify a domain, click on the name of the domain in the domain selection table. A dialog is presented where the desired changes can be made. Click on OK when finished. The Domain Name must be a valid RFC822 domain name. If a quota limit exists, the current quota is shown. To remove an existing quota, delete all the text in the Quota Size (in MB) field and leave it blank.

Figure 6-5. Modify Domain Dialog


Site Administrators

This page is reached by clicking on Site Administrators link in the navigation area. With this page administrators are added, deleted, or modified.

Adding Site Administrators

To add a Site Administrator, click on the Add Administrator button. A dialogue is displayed asking for the User Name of the new administrator. The user name must be a user in the administrative domain specified in the ms.conf file. Note that this process does not create an authentication account for the new user. Therefore, if an auth account does not exist, the user will not be able to log into Site Administration. A new authentication account must be created using Domain Administration.

  1. Login into Site Administration using your Authentication ID and Password.

  2. Specify the Domain for which you wish to add an Administrator (new user) in the Navigation portion of the page. This actions takes you to the Domain Administration page.

  3. Add a new Administrator (Add User).

  4. Set the new user as an Administrator and choose their password.

  5. Return to Site Administration using the Site Admin link in the Navigation area.

  6. Click on the Site Administrators link.

  7. Add User and provide the same user name as in Step 3.

  8. The new Administrator will now appear in the Site Administrators list.

The new Administrator can now login as a Site Administrator. See Chapter 7, “ Domain Administration” for further information.

Deleting Site Administrators

To delete an administrator, select the user name via the checkbox in the Site Administrator List table. Then click on the Delete Administrator button. A warning dialogue is presented; choose OK to accept the deletion. Choose Cancel to exit the dialogue. Deleting the administrator removes only the site administrative rights of the user; all other aspects of the user's account will continue to exist.