Information Systems:Barracuda Email Security Service
Overview
Barracuda Email Security Service is implemented at uniPHARM to filter incoming mail for spam and viruses. Before reaching our on-premise, MDaemon mail server, sending SMTP server must "go through" Barracuda first, and Barracuda will either deliver, reject, or quarantine the mail depending on custom rules and analysis-based results.
This page is dedicated to outlining the configuration and administration of the Barracuda Email Security Service at uniPHARM.
Administration
The service is renewed yearly from May 9 to May 8 the following year. The billing can either be on a credit card or PO. The billing information is in the top right corner of the Administration page where the SIGN OUT button is.
Daily administration
There are two "administrator" accounts (essentially normal accounts to which all the shareholder addresses are linked). Each of the two address correspond to our two domains - unipharm.com and medicinecentre.com - and both need to be checked daily to push held shareholder mail. The addresses/accounts are as follows:
- Username: admin@unipharm.com Password: NewVisionIT
- Username: admin@medicinecentre.com Password: NewVisionIT
There is nothing else special about these accounts other than that they have a lot of email addresses linked to them.
Log in to Barracuda ESS through the following URL: https://ess.barracudanetworks.com/user/auth/login?return_url=https%3A%2F%2Fess.barracudanetworks.com
Global Administration
Note: For daily quarantine administration, see section above.
There are two true administrator accounts:
norwinu@unipharm.com darrenf@unipharm.com
These differ from the staff accounts of the same name. To log in to these superadmin accounts, click 'Administrator login' or navigate there directly via the following URL:
https://login.barracudanetworks.com/auth/login?service=https%3A%2F%2Fess.barracudanetworks.com
Note: The passwords for these accounts are different from their respective "normal staff account" counterparts i.e. Norwin can log in via the normal login page with norwinu@unipharm.com and his Windows password and access his own quarantine. He can also log in under norwinu@unipharm.com via the URL above and with a different password and access the global administration site.
Norwin's Administration Tips
In a nutshell, this is my workflow for processing quarantined mail:
- Log in to the admin console, not the user one. Click here.
- Within 'Message Log', change the filter from 'All' to 'Quarantined' messages only.
- Disable previews by setting the 'Reading Pane' to 'Off'.
- Change number of displayed messages to 200 through the advanced search box.
- Hit search to apply parameters and refresh results.
- Double-click remarkable messages in the list to open them in new tabs.
- Process each tab, delivering messages or blocking domains or email addresses.
- Return to Message Log, process another set of tabs. Mind the date column to the right; you need not go back too far as those messages may have been processed already.
Notes
In July 2015, a decision was made to allow stores to access Barracuda ESS to administer their own quarantine. Currently, Barracuda ESS accounts have been deployed to the following stores:
- Kerrisdale Pharmacy (Eugene) --norwizzle (talk) 09:17, 7 July 2015 (PDT)
- Memorial/Nanoose Pharmacy (Darcy)
- Gladwin Pharmacy (Amrik) --norwizzle (talk) 14:15, 17 May 2016 (PDT)
Cloudscan outage
On Sepetember 18, 2015, an outage with the Cloudscan service restricted inbound mail delivery for 4 hours. Messages from whitelisted senders were being delivered, but anything that had to be "scored" (which is the function of the Cloudscan component of their antispam service), was deferred. This problem was fixed by the engineers and normal mailflow resumed.
End of Service
Unipharm moved it's mail service from internal HCL Notes / Domino to hosted Microsoft Exchange on April 5, 2021. As a result of this change, the usage of Barracuda for our email security service was stopped in favour of Microsoft Online Protection.