hMailServer’s email account can be linked with active directory user or local user created on the machine where hMailServer is installed (even in WORKGROUP environment). By using this feature the authentication task can be handed over to active directory. The main benefit is that no passwords are stored in hMailServer database. User must supply his active directory password for the active directory user name when logging into POP3/SMTP account.
Linking hMailServer email account with Active Directory user
- Edit the email account which you want to link with active directory
- Login to hMailServer Administrator
- Expand Domains
- Expand the domain name under which the email account is, then expand Accounts
- Click on the email account which you want to edit.
- Click on Active Directory tab.
- Active Directory account : Select to enable active directory authentication for this email account.
- Domain : Enter Domain name of active directory. If you have WORKGROUP environment then you can enter workgroup name here.
- User name : Enter the active directory user name or local user account (in case of WORKGROUP environment) that will be used to validate this account with active directory. Password will be supplied by email client.
hMailServer Active Directory Authentication Process Explained
- Email client initiates Send/Receive task. Email client must provide it’s username and password. In this case username will be hMailServer email account and password will be of the active directory user to which hMailServer email account is linked to. In below example g@gopalthorve.com is linked to active directory user gt@cloudtech.local. In email client the username must be g@gopalthorve.com, but the password must be that of gt@cloudtech.local.
- hMailServer will connect to the active directory server and will ask it to validate gt@cloudtech.local and password supplied by the email client.
- If active directory validates the credentials then email client will be allowed for further communication otherwise access will be denied.
gopalthorve please what i can do with adithinal domain controller and tree and child in your example you have explained on primary domain in the one forest
thx
You are welcome. Sure I shall try
gopalthorve thank you Gopal realy your web site very helpful for hmailserver
Yes you are correct. Active directory user name and email address can be different.
please what about active directory user name – do u mean enter any user name in active directory ?
sridharexec
Thanks Sri for the nice comment and appreciating the post.
I guess you can achieve single sign on usinghttp://code.google.com/p/rcldapauth/ plugin, however I have never tried it. Please let me know if you succeed.
According to me hMailServer is the best Open source solution for email server with a lot of community and volunteer support like me. Hence I would recommend using the same.
Dear Gopal,
Your post was very informative and useful. Thanks for putting up such posts. I have a small query for which i am awaiting your response. I am using round cube as the front end email client for all my users and at present all the users are using their email id and domain password to login. But I would like to know if I can use any of the plugins given by roundcube for authentication so that the user can login directly based on the domain username used to login without entering the password once again.
Secondly my other query is we are in the process of testing which email server is the best and we have now identified two email server, one is axigen and another is hmail server. Please advise which would be better to choose. Also let me know if there are any other email serve which you feel is better for windows environment. We prefer open source / free edition which supports around 40 users with out any restrictions.
Thanks and regards,
—
Sri
user name will be as the External email Accout. if i change the password of my domain accout say gt@cloudtech.local than it will be authenticated using old passsword or new password ?
user name will be the hmailserver email account. no if you change password of active directory user then it will not be authenticated using old password. you will need to provide new password.