Avira AMES User Manual V1
Avira Managed Email Security
-AMES -
User Guide
Version 1.0
www.avira.com
Table of Contents
Welcome 3
How does AMES work? 3
Getting started with AMES 4
Adding a new domain to AMES 4
Configuring your DNS server 4
Configuring your security and firewall 4
Scanning your outbound emails (optional) 4
Changing settings for your AMES domains 5
Logging in to AMES 5
Adding a new user to a domain 5
Adding a user alias 7
Configuring LDAP 7
Changing mail delivery-options 8
Customizing banners 9
Managing the quarantine 11
Adjusting the spam- and content-filter 12
Looking at statistics 13
Creating reports 14
Need more help? 15
AMES User Guide
Welcome
ank you for taking a look at the Avira Managed Email Security (AMES) user guide. We are convinced you have chosen the most
reliable email ltering solution available today. is manual will help you get started with AMES as well as customizing AMES to
your specic needs. You will get peace in your inbox in no time.
How does AMES work?
Avira Managed Email Security, or AMES for short, is a service dedicated to stopping spam or viruses before they reach the your
company network. is is achieved by routing email to our AMES server cluster. AMES then scans and delivers the spam- and
virus-free email to your server.
The most accurate spam scanning technology
For intercepting spam we use a combination of technologies proven to be extremely effective. Since spammers and virus makers
become more skilled every day, we constantly test and implement new methods to keep our lead position in email scanning, and
you enjoy the benets of this without any effort or costs.
Configuring AMES
Because we stop spam and viruses ‘in the cloud’, that is also the place where the conguration is done. You can nd the AMES
interface on https://ames.avira.com.
Licensing in AMES
When you let your Avira Partner purchases a license for AMES, you need to choose the number of users you need. ese users
correspond with the total number of people in your organization that are going to use AMES ltered email. AMES gives you total
freedom to freely distribute these users across multiple domains, create aliases for them and more, but always keep your license up
to par with the actual users. For more information see the AMES terms and conditions on our website.
3 © Avira GmbH November 2010
AMES User Guide
Getting started with AMES
You’ll nd that once your Avira Partner has set up a license for your domain, the rest of the conguration is surprisingly easy. If
you don’t have an Avira Partner yet, please take a look at the Partner Locator on our website.
Adding a new domain to AMES
When you’d like to add a new domain to AMES, please call your Avira Partner. He or she will take your details, request a license
and add the domain in AMES. Your partner will receive an order conrmation email with details such as MX records.
Once done, one user will be created, with a catch-all alias, and the mail delivery will be set to the currently used mail server.
is means, you could go to the next step without any further conguration and your mail ow will not be interrupted.
Configuring your DNS server
Normally this is something your partner does for you, but if for some reason you need to do this yourself, we’ll guide you in the
process. To activate the scanning and ltering of your email you have to change the so called MX-settings in the DNS server for
your domain. e correct records are in the order conrmation emailed to your partner. Example of an email to your domain
registrar:
Dear Registrar,
Please change the MX records of our domain www.demo.domain to:
10 mx1.c01.avira.com
20 mx2.c01.avira.com
Please make sure that our old MX records are completely removed.
anks in advance.
Kind regards,
Demo Customer
Make sure there is no MX-record with a priority below 10; otherwise emails from your organization will not be scanned and
ltered by AMES.
Depending on the Time-To-Live (TTL) settings of your MX records it might take up to 24 hours before DNS changes become active.
After directing the MX record to Avira the managed service is active and will scan and lter your emails. e ltered and scanned
emails will be delivered to your regular mailbox.
Configuring your security and firewall
When DNS changes are complete and propagated correctly, make sure your receiving mail server only accepts emails from AMES.
is can be done through settings in the rewall or mail server itself.
Scanning your outbound emails (optional)
To also scan your domains outbound emails you have to point your outbound mail server – or the mail client(s) – to send through
the mail server(s) mentioned in the order conrmation.
Depending on your network setup you might also need to change your rewall settings to allow outbound traffic to the AMES SMTP
server.
4 © Avira GmbH November 2010
1
2
3
4
1
AMES User Guide
Changing settings for your AMES domains
Logging in to AMES
Please visit https://ames.avira.com where you’ll nd the login screen:
Please ll in your login name (1), the domain (2) you want to access, and your password (3). ese can all be found in the order
conrmation your partner received. en click login (4). You will be presented with the AMES Service License Agreement
(SLA), which you will need to agree with to continue.
Adding a new user to a domain
When AMES is congured for your domain, it needs users to operate properly. When an email is sent to the email address
info@demo.domain , the user info has to exist, or mail will be bounced back to the sender. By default, AMES has one catch-all
user. A catch-all user is convenient because it receives email for all users on your domain. e recommended approach though, is to
create a separate user account in AMES for every user you have. Please read our catch all warning to see why. is may seem like a
tedious job when having a lot of users, but the LDAP feature can really cut the time spent on this task.
Adding a new user by hand can be done when you are in the users tab.
Click Add (1) to show the Add user dialog:
5 © Avira GmbH November 2010
Loading...