Automatic setup for your domain.

How Neruna searches

After “Next”, Neruna asks these places in order – the first answer wins. Each gets at most 8 seconds, and only encrypted (HTTPS) requests are made.

1. Neruna Cloud – if the device is connected to your organisation's cloud, the settings come from there.

2. https://autoconfig.example.com/mail/config-v1.1.xml

3. https://example.com/.well-known/autoconfig/mail/config-v1.1.xml

4. Mozilla's public autoconfig database for large providers. It only learns the domain, never the full address.

If Neruna finds nothing, it suggests mail.domain for IMAP and SMTP and the email address as user name – to check and adjust. It then also looks for calendars and contacts under /.well-known.

Neruna does not evaluate DNS SRV records (RFC 6186) at the moment.

The file

The common autoconfig format (config-v1.1.xml) that other mail programs read too. Neruna also reads calendar and address book:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<clientConfig version="1.1">
  <emailProvider id="example.com">
    <domain>example.com</domain>
    <displayName>Example AG</displayName>
    <incomingServer type="imap">
      <hostname>mail.example.com</hostname>
      <port>993</port>
      <socketType>SSL</socketType>
      <authentication>password-cleartext</authentication>
      <username>%EMAILADDRESS%</username>
    </incomingServer>
    <outgoingServer type="smtp">
      <hostname>mail.example.com</hostname>
      <port>587</port>
      <socketType>STARTTLS</socketType>
      <authentication>password-cleartext</authentication>
      <username>%EMAILADDRESS%</username>
    </outgoingServer>
  </emailProvider>
  <calendar type="caldav">
    <serverURL>https://dav.example.com/</serverURL>
    <username>%EMAILADDRESS%</username>
  </calendar>
  <addressBook type="carddav">
    <serverURL>https://dav.example.com/</serverURL>
    <username>%EMAILADDRESS%</username>
  </addressBook>
</clientConfig>

socketType

SSL – encrypted from the start (IMAP 993, SMTP 465); STARTTLS – encryption after connecting (IMAP 143, SMTP 587).

authentication

password-cleartext means user name and password – over the encrypted connection, not in the clear on the network.

username

Placeholders: %EMAILADDRESS% (full address), %EMAILLOCALPART% (before the @), %EMAILDOMAIN%.

calendar, addressBook

Optional, directly inside clientConfig. The server address is enough – Neruna finds the individual calendars and address books itself.

DNS and web server

Create a DNS record for autoconfig.your-domain pointing to a web server, and put the file there at /mail/config-v1.1.xml:

autoconfig.example.com.   3600  IN  CNAME  www.example.com.

The certificate must be valid for autoconfig.your-domain – Neruna only asks over HTTPS and rejects invalid certificates.

Can't add a host name? Then the file on the main domain at /.well-known/autoconfig/mail/config-v1.1.xml is enough.

Several domains on the same mail server: each domain needs its own autoconfig record, the file can be the same everywhere. Neruna appends ?emailaddress=… – a static web server simply ignores it.

Testing

If the XML file comes back, Neruna finds it too:

curl -s "https://autoconfig.example.com/mail/config-v1.1.xml?emailaddress=anna@example.com"

In Neruna, “Add account” shows after “Next” where the settings came from (e.g. “autoconfig.example.com”). If nothing is shown, no place answered.

Finding calendars and contacts →