Roller Network Help - Mail Mirror
The mail mirroring feature allows you to mirror addresses or domains to a hosted mail box by storing a copy for backup, auditing, or emergency access purposes. A mirror uses hosted mail boxes for storage and therefore the backup data is readily available using IMAP/POP3 or webmail. When a hosted mail box is used as mail mirror storage it has an automatic "expire" date where messages older than the configured number of days are automatically deleted. This expiration process prevents a mirror from growing out of control.
All paid accounts include access to our mail mirroring feature. Please note: mail boxes used for mirror storage are still read/write and may not be suitable for auditing processes that require read-only storage. We will address read-only mirror storage in the future. It is also important to note that Mail Mirror is a preemptive feature: it will not act on queued messages and it must be set up before it's needed to be fully effective for backup, auditing, or emergency access.
Configuration
A mail mirror may be configured to mirror a specific address ("Single Recipient" type) or an entire mail domain ("All Recipients" type). The mirroring process takes place after all filters are processed, so only messages that pass the filtering settings for a mail domain will be mirrored. Click on the "Add New Mail Mirror" button to get started.
Select a mirror type: either "Single Recipient" or "All Recipients". It is possible to add multiple mirroring destinations for a single source. For "Single Recipient" mirrors enter the recipient address and choose the mail domain from the selector - this defines an email address to be mirrored. For an "All Recipients" mirror you will only need to select the mail domain name.
Mirror storage may be defined in two ways: "Auto-Create Storage" (the default) or an existing mail box. We recommend using the default automatic storage setting which will create a new, unique mail box for the mirror. To use an existing mail box simply select it from the list. (Caution: if you use an existing mail box mirroring will automatically delete messages older than the "Days to Mirror" value.) A random password for the automatic storage option will be displayed after creating the mirror, however, you can always change it on the mail box management page. The automatic naming convention is "_mirror@domain.tld" for all recipient types and "_mirror_user@domain.tld" for single recipient types.
The valid "Days to Mirror" range is 1 day to 3650 days (about 10 years).
Configuration Example
In this example, any mail sent to "example@rollernet.us" will be stored in the mirror mail box "_mirror_example@rollernet.us" with an expiration time of 30 days.
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Mail Mirrors and Forwarding
It's important to note that mail mirroring takes place before mail forwarding. This means that forwarding destinations are not considered for mirroring, only the forwarding map source (the one given by the RCPT TO command during the SMTP session) will mirror a message. If you have a domain with a lot of maps/aliases pointing to a single mail box you'll need to add "Single Recipient" mirrors for each or use an "All Recipients" mirror to cover the entire domain.
There are exceptions (such as an email address forwarding destination that loops back to our servers that matches a mirror) but we don't recommend relying on such tricks unless you fully understand the implications behind them. If you have questions contact technical support.
Mail Mirror Storage Expiration
The duration a message is allowed to remain in the mail mirror storage is determined by the "Days to Mirror" value. Mirror storage is automatically scanned every 24 hours at 0:00 Pacific time; UTC-8 (summer UTC-7). Messages older than the configured value are removed during the scan. This expiration process allows a mirror to operate unattended.
Total Number of Configurable Mirrors
The total number of configurable mirrors is limited depending on the account service level.