Mail Relay - Introduction

If you have devices or software on your school's network that need to be able to send email you can have rules set up to use the LGfL Mail Relay. You can request these are configured for you by raising a support case and outlining your requirements. You will need to specify:

the IP address of each device,
the "from" address you want the device to have
the recipient address that the device needs to be able to send mail to

The from address of a device can be something@yourschool.org.uk or any other address you need it to use. The from address can also contain wildcards in the first part of the address. This would mean that an address could be specified as %@yourschool.org.uk

Such devices will be enabled to send a limited number of emails per hour to ensure that if the device goes wrong, it does not result in wider email problems that impact on the entire school. If you know the device must send a certain number of emails within a single hour, please specify this as part of the Mail Relay configuration request.

For example: In the image above -

The value shown in the Period column is the a number of seconds (in the image above it’s 60s)
The value shown in the Limit column is the number of emails allowed in that period before the email relay stops sending email (in the image above it’s 5 emails).

If during the specified period the limit is reached, then the number in the Overruns column is increased by 1. As a result, the email relay gets refused until the number of emails sent in the previous period is below the limit. In the image above, the limit has never been reached but this value is useful to see if you have a problem with the device sending mail or need to increase the Limit or Period. If the Overruns column shows a large number, this tells you there is a problem.

For example, when the photocopier tries to send emails, the messages will go out as required until the device sends more than 5 emails in 60 seconds. When this happens, the email relay stops accepting emails from the photocopier until the number of emails sent by the photocopier in the previous 60 seconds is less than 5. Once the number of emails being sent falls below the limit, the relay starts accepting email again.