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As the FirstClass administrator at your site, you have a number of tasks you must do to plan, create, and maintain your FirstClass system. The first, and most important, is to decide what type of site you want to create and what you want to achieve. Some administrators run very basic sites and others develop quite elaborate ones. Your administrator tasks and site setup will depend on what your organization requires and how you wish to enable your users.
The information contained in this document is broken down into Basic administration and Beyond the basics and describes which tasks are compulsory and which tasks are optional. Whether you are running a basic or sophisticated site, we advise you to read through the documents in the Introduction and Internet Services concepts sections first.
Keep in mind, that although Internet Services is a separate module in the FirstClass architecture, it does not act independently. The FirstClass server and Internet Services are strongly interdependent, so what you create in Internet Services may have an impact on the FirstClass server. The same holds true in reverse.
Basic Internet Services administration
By default, Internet Services is installed with a great deal of functionality. If all you want to do is support a basic web server on your site (for example, run SMTP mail only, allow web client accessibility for your users, and monitor your site's daily activities) these are the tasks you need to do:
• install the FirstClass Internet Services module, as described in the instructions located on your FirstClass Desktop.
• add SMTP information to your the MX records in your Domain Name Server (DNS) to allow users to send and receive mail
You must already know how to do this task on your operating system.
• add your default web site (setup when you install FirstClass) address in the MX records in your DNS
You must already know how to do this task on your operating system.
• disable third-party email capabilities (for example, POP3 and IMAP 4) on the Mail tab on the Basic Internet Setup form
• disable outside Directory access (for example, LDAP and Finger) on the Directory tab on the Basic Internet Setup form
• set your Internet Services gateway password
• configure your Internet Services connection schedule
• monitor Internet Services on a daily basis to check spam and unwanted connections, and maintain the health and viability of your FirstClass site
• edit the default home page, located in the Internet Services/WWW/Main Site container on the administrator's Desktop
If you are not running a customized web site, you can use the default home page. However, we recommend that, at the very least, you add your site name and logo to orient users when they access your site.
• create filter documents to trust or block specific individuals or sites (manage spam)
 Note If you wish to use filter documents to block addresses, you must enable "Reject connections based on Filters" on the Connections tab on the Basic Internet Setup form.
• add words and attachment extensions to the rules.SubjectBlock and rules.AttachmentBlock filter documents you wish to block from your users
Filter documents are enabled automatically if they reside in the Filters container.
• configure the Real Blackhole Lookup (RBL) subtab on the Basic Internet Setup form to control spam
• configure the MailRules subtab on the Basic Internet Setup form to control how Internet Services mail rules handles and scores spam and to set the number of SMTP crosspostings on your site
• provide your users with additional email aliases and configure how mail is delivered to a user's Mailbox based on his aliases (optional), see Configuring email aliases.
Beyond the basics
There are various ways to enhance your FirstClass site and make it more robust and sophisticated. For our purposes, we consider anything outside of basic administration advanced. To expand your site's basic functionality, these are the areas you may want to expand:
• steer users logging in through different platforms to your site or to different sites you support, using Browser steering
• support separate protocols and domains on different Internet Services clusters
• change the appearance of your web site using the .sitepref form
• create multiple web sites or multiple web sites and languages
• customize your site structure using FirstClass templates using FirstClass Internet Services script
• make your site more dynamic using CGI and ISAPI scripting applications
• extend how your site handles external attachments using the MIME Types file
• use your FirstClass site as a file server
• manage your Internet Services system security
• configure advanced SMTP mail rules.
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