> Network Administrator Guide >Creating and Populating

8.2.3a

Chapter 3a - Creating and Populating cc:Mail Post Offices (1/4)

This will walk you through the process of setting up a cc:Mail post office from scratch. This process can be used to create a stand-alone post office or to add a post office to an existing cc:Mail system.

The cc:Mail administration programs and utilities can be broken down into the post office administration program itself and the related utilities. The administration utilities will be discussed in Chapters xx and xx. The OS/2 version of the administration program is named ADMIN2.EXE and the DOS version is named ADMIN.EXE. For versions of cc:Mail prior to Release 6, a Macintosh version of the administration program, named "Admin," is also available. Since the there is currently no Macintosh version of the administration program in Release 6, however, the following text assumes that you are using either OS/2 or DOS.

Note: Depending on which cc:Mail products you purchased and when you purchased them, specific installation procedures may vary. See the Lotus cc:Mail documentation that came with your cc:Mail products for appropriate details. If you are migrating a cc:Mail database created by a version of cc:Mail earlier than Release 6 to the new Release 6 database format, see Appendix A.

The administration program and related files and utilities are usually stored in a directory located on a file server so that the cc:Mail Administrator can run them from any workstation on the LAN. Some administrators prefer to store the administrative programs on the local hard drive of a workstation instead. In either case, make sure that users do not have access to these files.

Quick Start

If you’re eager to get up and running right away, follow the steps below. If there’s anything you’re not sure about check out the appropriate section of this article for a full explanation.

Creating a New Post Office

You should first decide what file server you will store the cc:Mail post office on and what volume and directory the files will be located in. The location you select should have enough disk space to accommodate the estimated eventual size of the post office you will create.

Creating the Post Office Directory

For downward compatibility with the DOS operating system, the post office directory should be given an alphanumeric name of eight characters or less (a dot or period followed by a three character extension is allowed). Dash and underscore characters are OK. If you plan to have more than one post office, the post office directory name can be used to indicate which post office the directory contains. In this case, you might partially match the directory names to the post office names. Create the post office directory and make sure you have privileges or access rights to create files in the directory.

Running the Administration Program

To create a new post office, run the administration program. When you run the administration program, specify the location for the new post office on the command line. If you do not specify a drive and path on the command line, the Administration program will prompt you for the location where you want to create the post new office.

To create a post office in the directory CCPO-01 on drive Q: using the OS/2 version of the Administration program, for example, you would type:

ADMIN2 Q:\CCPO-01

You will be prompted for additional information about the post office as described in the sections below.

There are a couple of minor things to look out for when you run the administration program if you already have a cc:Mail system.

First, in versions of cc:Mail prior to Release 6 a default drive and path (M:\CCDATA) was built-in to the administration program. If you are using a version of the administration program prior to Release 6 and you don’t specify the post office path on the command line, the administration program will check for a post office in M:\CCDATA. If a post office is found in M:\CCDATA, the administration program will assume that you want to administer a post office in that location and will prompt you for the post office name. Pressing the Escape key will abort the administration program.

Second, in Release 6 and earlier the administration program also checks for the environment variable CCCONFIG that specifies the filename and location of the cc:Mail initialization file (the default filename is CCMAIL.INI). An existing INI file may specify a post office drive and path in a section beginning with "[Admin]." If you run the administration program with no command line parameters, it will assume you want to access the post office specified in the INI file. It’s easy to forget about the INI file once it’s set up so try typing SET followed by the Enter key on the command line to check for the CCCONFIG environment variable.

Specifying a Post Office Name

When you create a new post office, the administration program will prompt you asking if you are sure. When you press the ‘Y’ key you will be prompted for the post office name. Enter a name for the post office up to 126 characters in length. Although cc:Mail post office names may include any character, I recommend relatively short, alphanumeric names without spaces. This makes for ease of administration and allows the full post office name to be represented within the addressing formats used by e-mail gateways and other types of e-mail systems.

If you prefer longer, more descriptive post office names, you should make them unique within the first eight characters. This will allow you to set up dynamic drive mappings for the cc:Mail Router based on OS/2 command files or DOS batch files which must be named to match the first eight characters of each post office name.

The Post Office Password

After you enter the post office directory and name, you will be prompted for the post office password. Enter a password at least eight characters in length consisting of a mixture of numbers and letters. The post office password is not case sensitive in the DOS or OS/2 environments. The main purpose of the password is to control administrative access to the post office. The password will also be used as the default Router call password. Be sure to remember the password.

Number of Directory Entries

If you are running a version of the administration program below Release 6 you will be prompted for the expected number of directory entries in thousands. This is the number of user and post office names that will be added to the cc:Mail Directory. If you will be initially entering in the names of less than a thousand users, simply enter the number 1.

The number you enter determines the size of an index used by various the cc:Mail programs to look up entries in the cc:Mail Directory. If the index size is smaller than the number of entries that you will be adding to the cc:Mail Directory, the process of adding names may be extremely slow.

If you will be importing a directory of names using the cc:Mail Import/Export utilities, or using Automatic Directory Exchange to populate the cc:Mail directory for the first time, enter the number of names contained in the directory import file or superior post office directory.

Code Page Selection

If you are running Release 6 or later of the administration program you will be prompted to select a DOS code page for the post office (see Figure 3.1). Code pages represent the character sets used by different languages. Code page support in cc:Mail Release 6 ensures that directory information and message text will be properly stored and displayed for supported languages.

Following is a list of a few common code pages (see your DOS manual for more information).

Users of American English should select code page 437. Most Western European language users should select code page 850. Only the code pages listed by the administration program are supported.

Figure 3.1

 

Language Sort Order

If you are running Release 6 or later of the administration program you will be prompted to select a language sort order (see Figure 3.2). Your language sort order selection controls the alphabetization of items appearing in lists, especially in the cc:Mail Directory. If your language is not listed in the language sort order dialog, select "International."

Figure 3.2

Using the Administration Program

Within the administration program, menu options contain highlighted letters. Pressing the keys corresponding to a highlighted letter selects a menu option. Arrow keys can also be used to move the highlight to a menu option which you then select by pressing the Enter key. The Escape key exits from the current menu.

When the post office has been created, the Main Menu of the administration program will appear and you are ready to begin creating mailboxes for cc:Mail users (See Figure 3.3).

Figure 3.3: The Administration Program Main Menu

In the Main Menu of the administration program you can see statistics such as the number of mailboxes and post offices listed in your cc:Mail Directory along with the number of public mailing lists and bulletin boards. Also shown is important post office utilization information such as the total number of messages, the number of deleted messages, the total amount of message data in the post office, the size of the cc:Mail Directory and the last date on which the files were reclaimed or compacted. There are some minor differences in the post office utilization data shown depending upon what version of the administration program you are using.

Adding the Administrator’s Mailbox

After you’ve reached the main menu, you’ll create the cc:Mail Administrator’s mailbox. From the Main Menu of the administration program select the "Manage Mail Directory" option and press the Enter key (this is the first option on the Main Menu). Since the first user you create is the post office administrator, you will see the prompt "Enter cc:Mail Administrator Name" at the top of the screen. Enter the name of the person who will be responsible for the administration of the cc:Mail system. You can change which user is the cc:Mail administrator at any time from the administration program main menu.

The administrator name is often entered simply as "Administrator" so that cc:Mail messages to the administrator, such as error notifications, are kept separate from other messages intended for the individual responsible for the administration of the post office. This naming convention also allows administrators to manage multiple post offices without keeping track of the administrator name for each post office. What is more important is that you may change the location and cc:Mail address of the administrator’s mailbox to route administrative messages to a central mailbox in a larger cc:Mail system.

After you type the name of the administrator and press the Enter key, you will be prompted to enter ‘comments’. This field is optional and may be left blank. To leave the comment field blank, press the Enter key again.

Now you are ready to begin adding users to the new post office.

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©1996, 1997 by Global System Services Corporation (GSS) Portions of this material are ©1995 by Ron Herardian

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©1995-2005 by Global System Services Corporation (GSS). Portions of this material are copyright ©1995-1999 by Ron Herardian