How to Sign Up and Get Started

Getting started with Red Condor is easy. Here's the basic process:

  • Choose either our Hosted Service or MAG-series Network Appliance to protect your email
  • Sign up for a 30-day Free Trial
  • Configure your DNS MX records
  • Configure your mail server and firewall, if needed
  • Log into your Personal Dashboard to look at and change your account settings
  • Use Daily Spam Digest, as desired, to keep track of what emails are being quarantined

1. Choose either our Hosted Service or MAG-series Network Appliance

It's up to you which you choose, but here's a general guideline:

  • If you want Red Condor to handle your email protection, choose our Hosted Service. There's no hardware, no software, and no spam. You pay a small monthly fee for each mailbox that we protect. This is perfect for business with 5 – 5,000 mailboxes and little or no IT staff.
  • If you want local, onsite protection and control, then you may want to consider purchasing one of our MAG-series network appliances. Our sales staff will help you select the proper model and configuration to best suit your situation. This is the most cost-effective anti-spam protection.

2. Sign up for a 30-day Free Trial

  • If you want to sign up for a 30-day Free Trial of our Hosted Service, click here.
  • If you want to sign up for a 30-day Free Trial of a MAG-series Network Appliance, click here. You will be contacted by our sales team directly and can stop here.

3. Configure Your DNS MX Records, Mail Server, and Firewall

After you sign up for a free trial, you will get an email telling you that your domain has been successfully configured. In that email you’ll find instructions for setting up your email to work with Red Condor. Basically, there are three simple steps:

  • Configure Your DNS Mail Exchanger Settings – In order to make the service work, you need to update your Mail Exchanger (MX) DNS records for your domain. To make this change, you will need to contact your domain Name Service provider, hosting service, or ISP.
  • Configure Your Mail Server (OPTIONAL) – We can automatically determine if all your mailboxes are valid and make sure all your aliases are configured properly if you enable the SMTP verify command (VRFY), and disable "catch-all" mailbox forwarding. If you skip this step, mailbox aliases (alternate email addresses for the same mailbox) will not be detected and must be configured in the Red Condor Dashboard manually.
  • Configure Your Firewall Settings – If you are running your own mail server and all of its domains are being protected by Red Condor, we recommend blocking all SMTP (port 25) connections except for your internal PCs, and Red Condor’s IP addresses. For more information about configuring firewalls, click here.

Sound tricky? Don’t worry, we’ll help you. Just send us an email or call us and we can walk you through these important steps. To find out how to contact us, click here.

4. From the Portal, Log Into Your Admin Dashboard to Look at and Change Your Account Settings

The Admin Dashboard is an online control panel that lets you view and change your account settings for your various domains.

Admin Dashboard

Use the Daily Spam Digest to Keep Track of What Emails Are Being Quarantined

The Daily Spam Digest shows you the emails that have been blocked and placed in Quarantine. You can choose to automatically receive your Spam Digest daily, weekly, monthly or choose not to get one at all. You can also view the Spam Digest as a web page that you can access using your Dashboard

If you see a message in your Spam Digest that you want to take a closer look at, you can release a message from quarantine and send it to your inbox. Just click the View link in the Spam Digest next to the message you want to release. The Preview Message screen will open in your browser, and you can then determine if it is a valid message.

Daily Spam Digest

If you decide you want to receive the email after previewing it, you can release it from quarantine by clicking the Release button on the bottom right of the screen. The message will be immediately sent to your regular email inbox.

If you want to delete messages in the Spam Digest you don’t have to do anything. The spam emails listed in the Spam Digest have already been filtered. These emails will automatically be deleted after 35 days. Each digest you receive lists only the new spam, while the older spam is not shown.