Configure your own mail providers and sessions to customize
how mail is handled in the application server. A mail provider encapsulates
a collection of protocol providers, like SMTP, IMAP and POP3, and
others. Mail sessions authenticate users and control access to messaging
systems.
About this task
The application server includes a default mail provider
that is called the built-in provider. If you use the default mail
provider, you only have to configure the mail session.
To use
a customized mail provider, you must create the mail session and provider.
Procedure
- Create the mail session.
- In the administrative console, click .
- Select the scope for the new mail session.
- Click New.
- Type the mail session name in the Name field.
- Type the JNDI name in the JNDI Name field.
- Optional: Enable strict Internet address
parsing. This option specifies whether the recipient addresses
must be parsed in strict compliance with RFC 822, which is a specifications
document that is issued by the Internet Architecture Board. This setting
is not generally used for most mail applications, and by default this
setting is not enabled.
RFC 822 syntax for parsing addresses effectively
enforces a strict definition of a valid email address. If you select
this setting, your mail component adheres to RFC 822 syntax and rejects
recipient addresses that do not parse into valid email addresses as
defined by the specification. If you do not select this setting, your
mail component does not adhere to RFC 822 syntax and accepts recipient
addresses that do not comply with the specification. You can view
the RFC 822 specification at the website for the World Wide Web Consortium.
- Optional: Enable debug mode. Select
this option to print interaction between the mail application and
the mail servers and the properties of this mail session to the SystemOut.log
file.
Note: This topic references one or more of the application
server log files. As a recommended alternative, you can configure
the server to use the High Performance Extensible Logging (HPEL) log
and trace infrastructure instead of using SystemOut.log , SystemErr.log, trace.log, and activity.log files on distributed and IBM® i systems. You can also use
HPEL in conjunction with your native z/OS® logging facilities. If you are using HPEL, you can access
all of your log and trace information using the LogViewer command-line
tool from your server profile bin directory. See the information
about using HPEL to troubleshoot applications for more information
on using HPEL.
- Provide information for the incoming mail service, outgoing
service, or both. Enter the following information in the
fields that are provided:
- Server
- Protocol
- User
- Password
- Return email address. This field is available for outgoing mail
properties.
- Click Apply or OK.
- Create the mail provider, and optionally define one or
more protocol providers. In the administrative console,
click .
- Select the scope for the new mail provider.
- Click New.
- Type the name of the mail provider in the name field.
- Optional: Isolate the mail provider.
You can isolate a mail provider to allow different versions
of the same provider to be loaded in the same Java Virtual
Machine (JVM). For example, you might want to deploy multiple applications
on a single server, but each application requires different versions
or implementations of the mail provider. You can isolate each version
or implementation of the provider, and the provider is loaded in its
own class loader and does not interfere with other implementations.
There are some general considerations for isolating any type of resource
provider; refer to the topic on considerations for isolated resource
providers for more information.
- Select Isolate this mail provider.
- Give the mail provider a unique class path that is appropriate
for that version or implementation.
- Click Apply or OK.
- Define one or more protocol providers for the mail provider.
- Click mail_provider.
- Click Protocol Providers.
- Click New.
- Type the protocol name in the Protocol field.
- Type the class name in the Class name field.
- Select the type of mail server that this protocol provider supports.
Select TRANSPORT or STORE. TRANSPORT corresponds to outgoing mail
services, and STORE corresponds to incoming mail services.
- Click Apply or OK.
Ensure that every mail session is defined under a parent mail
provider. Select a mail provider first and then create your mail session.
- Optional: Configure the mail session.
- Click mail_provider.
- Click Mail Sessions.
- Click mail_session.
- Make changes to appropriate fields.
- Click Apply or OK.
What to do next
If your application has a client, you can configure mail
providers and sessions using the Application Client Resource Configuration
Tool.