Configure Thunderbird

Configure Thunderbird

How to configured Mozilla Thunderbird for use with Mail Toaster.

Thunderbird has excellent support for connecting to modern mail servers. It supports POP3, IMAP, SMTP, SSL, TLS, and more. As such it is an email client that is easy to recommend.

Step 1. Gather Info

Gather your account information. You will need:

1. Your name
2. the hostname of your email server
3. Your email address
4. your password

Step 2. Configure Account

1. Open Mozilla and choose Tools -> Account Settings.
2. Click the Add Account button
3. Choose Email Account as the account type
4. Enter your name and email address.
5. Select IMAP for your account type and set incoming server to the hostname of your email server. You can get this information from your ISP. It is usually in the form: mail.example.com.
6. Set Incoming User Name to your email address.
7. the default account name is fine.

At this point your account is created and it will work, but it is not taking advantage of any of the security features offered by Mail Toaster.

Step 3. Enable Security

You will be presented with Thunderbirds account settings screen. Within the account you just created: Choose the Server Settings option. Set Use secure connection to SSL Choose the Outgoing Server (SMTP) option. Select add or edit as appropriate Set Server Name to your email server hostname Set Port to 587 Select (enable) the Use name and password checkbox Set User Name to your email address. Set Use Secure Connection to TLS

Step 4. Alternate SSL Setting

Notice that Thunderbird also has a SSL option. If that option is selected, then it expects to negotiate a SSL connection before any negotiations with the mail server. This is not the default behavior of Mail Toaster. It expects to begin the SMTP conversation, offer encryption via the STARTTLS option, and only use it if the client supports and asks for it. In this way, it works with both encrypted and non-encrypted clients. If you wish to support SSL as well as TLS, then the best method is to install stunnel and configure it to listen on port 465 (the smtps) and tunnel the connection to port 587. Stunnel will negotiation the SSL connection and pass it through to your mail server listening on port 587. Do not pass the connection to port 25, as port 25 does not require authentication! To configure Thunderbird to use this service, configure as follows: Choose the Outgoing Server (SMTP) option. Select add or edit as appropriate Set Server Name to your email server hostname Set Port to 465 Select (enable) the Use name and password checkbox Set User Name to your email address. Set Use Secure Connection to SSL