Administrator and User Accounts

The Email Appliance provides different functionality, depending on the type of account. Administrators can access Email Appliance features, as can email users for whom the Email Appliance filters mail. There are two types of administrator account: System administrator and Help desk administrator.

System administrators have full access to the control and monitor functions of the Email Appliance, including its configuration. They can create, and in some cases import, other accounts. A system administrator controls whether users have web access to Email Appliance management capabilities and what features are available to them.

However, help desk administrators cannot access:

• the Configuration tab
• the System Status tab
• the Sophos Support or About pages that are linked from the Help window

Users are the email recipients served by the groups, which are either imported from a directory services server or are manually created. Mail-filtering actions are applied to specified groups. System administrators can grant users access to web pages that give them the ability to manage certain aspects of their own mail filtering via a web-based GUI. Administrators can set any of the following user preferences:

• Whether users can access web pages from which they can manage (release or delete) their own quarantined messages.
• What authentication method is used when users log in.
• Whether users can create their own allow/block lists.
• Whether users can opt out of spam checking.
• What default language is displayed in the user web access pages.
• Whether users receive emailed summaries of the messages that they have in the quarantine.