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What are vacation messages / auto responders and how do I set them up?
A vacation message / auto responder is a message which you specify in the control panel, which is automatically sent to everyone who sends you an email upon receipt. An auto responder sends a reply to every email which is sent to you, a vacation message only sends a single email to each sender that contacts you within a certain period.
In general, we would suggest that you don't use an auto responder unless there is a good reason. Most people will assume that their email has been received unless their message is returned and so don't need to be advised that their email has arrived in your mail box. You also end up automatically replying to a lot of SPAM emails.
A vacation message is useful if you are going away and need to advise people of a delay in receipt or to provide alternative contact details. This can be set up via the user control panel at http://www.example.com/user (replace example.com with your domain name). Click on 'Email', then on 'Vacation Message'. You will then need to click on the 'Edit Configuration' button. Click on the box beside 'Enable Vacation Message' to place a tick in it and then put your message in the 'Vacation Message' box. There is an example in the box at the default. You can either use that one or change it to a message of your choice. Then click on the 'Update' button to finish.
To stop the vacation message at a later date, simply click on the box beside 'Enable Vacation Message' to remove the tick from from the box and then click on the 'Update' button to finish.