James currently (v2.1) includes only the most basic list functionality, users can subscribe and unsubscribe, but there is no moderation of messages or subscriptions

To enable a list you need the following in config.xml in the root processor block and above the final mailet block -

that will intercept the command emails sent to

• james-on@localhost to subscribe the sender
• james-off@localhost to unsubscribe the sender

and-

Which will distribute the mail to the current subscribers

in addition to the above you need to have a repository configured in the users-store block(usually near the bottom of config.xml) like so (database)-

In some simple tests of mail relays James appears to be an open relay, properly configured it is not.

Because James is an email application platform it currently accepts all mail delivered to it via SMTP for processing. Only after the mail has been recieved does this processing begin.

This means that James accepts Spam. However the default configuration, and any sensible re-configuration has a number of anti-spam measures which will prevent the re-transmisson of spam from James. This makes it a blackhole for spam.

This also means that James will not verify addresses, but of course this means that valid addresses can't be harvested from James by spammers either.

Check that you've added valid DNS servers to your James installation. Email delivery requires the use of special mail related DNS information (MX records), so James needs to explicitly be given DNS servers. Look at your config.xml file for a <dnsserver> section and add one or more DNS servers.

Additionally, check the RemoteAddrNotInNetwork matcher under<processor name="transport">. By default it looks like this:

because most mail programs will use the external IP address (as opposed to 127.0.0.1) when processing mail, you need to add your internal network and/or your static IP address to this list. You may also use a DNS domain name in this list. The resulting entry would look something like this:

This tells the processor that anything not in this address list should go to the spam processor.

You need to do one of two things:

1. Update your domain's DNS entries so there are MX records that point to the machine that is running James. Note that it is illegal for MX records to point to IP addresses. You need to point MX records to a valid CNAME or A name entry, and then map that eventually to an IP address.
2. You could alternatively give people an email address with IP addresses. Most people will think it's a very strange email address, but hello@[192.168.0.1] is a valid email address. Note that you need to wrap the IP address in brackets.

First step is to look in the log directory at the mailet.log file. Look for entries that include the text "RemoteDelivery". This should provide some high-level debug information of James' attempt to delivery mail remotely.

If you want to delve into the code, look at the RemoteDelivery mailet. You may also want to review the mail repository source code for the repository type you are using (file, db, etc...).

IMAP development had been stalled, but has recently attracted new activity. IMAP support is scheduled for inclusion in James v3. In the meantime, there is experimental code in the repository. If you are interested in working on or trying the IMAP prototype code, join the james-dev mailing list and let us know.

We are largely reliant on what Avalon is doing in terms of classloading, but here are a few tips and suggestions:

Check the JavaMail docs. Per the API, when you call MimeMessage.setContent(blah), you have to call saveChanges() to apply your changes. James tries to automatically call this method so you don't have to, but in certain cases you'll still have to call saveChanges().

The following information is based on James 2.0a3, but the upcoming 2.1 version should be similar.

NNTP and other underlying services are called "blocks" in the Avalon Phoenix terminology. Blocks are specified in the assembly.xml file which is located in the apps/james/SAR-INF directory (2.1) or apps/james/conf directory (2.0a3). Note: this file is created during the first startup of James.

There are dependencies between the blocks, which you can read from the file. For example the SMTP Server block depends on the users-store block, so if you want SMTP then you cannot remove the users-store block even if you only want to relay messages.

To remove the NNTP Server comment out the following blocks: NNTP server, NNTP Authentication Service, NNTP repository. To remove the POP3 Server comment out the POP3 Server block.

If you remove a block it wont't be loaded next time you restart James. You must also remove all sections related to the removed blocks from the James configuration file - config.xml - otherwise you will get error messages, saying that there is no corresponding block.

I am using Microsoft's SQL Type 4 JDBC Driver, why do I get the following exception?
java.sql.SQLException: [Microsoft][SQLServer 2000 Driver for JDBC]Can't start manual transaction mode because there are cloned connections.

This seems to be a problem with the Microsoft Type 4 JDBC Driver and concurrent statements/transactions/resultsets on the same database conntection.

To solve this you need to add ;SelectMethod=cursor to the end of your dburl string. Your dburl string would then look something like this
<dburl>jdbc:microsoft:sqlserver://dbserver.host.name:1433;SelectMethod=cursor</dburl>

NOTE: some people have complained about performance when using this option, the alternative is a 3rd party JDBC driver but these are often not free.

When a user tries to send a large message that is close to but not quite at the max message limit the send fails and an exception similar to the following appears in the log:

Sent: 451 Error processing message:
Exception spooling message: Exception caught while storing mail Container:
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Packet is larger than max_allowed_packet
from server configuration of 4193280 bytes;
nested exception is:
java.lang.RuntimeException: Exception caught while storing mail
Container: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Packet is larger than
max_allowed_packet from server configuration of 4193280 bytes

Because of how the JDBC driver is written, a 25% factor is necessary between the maximum message size and the max_packet_size to prevent the driver from throwing an exception. So if you want a 4MB maximum message size, you need a 5MB max_packet size. Or a 4MB max_packet_size allows only a 3.2MB max message.