1. Mail server info

The mail server for research accounts is mail.eecis.udel.edu . The server for academic accounts is mail.ecl.udel.edu or mail.acad.ece.udel.edu. When setting up a mail reader these are the server names to use for incoming mail with imap. Also, imap is only supported over SSL connections. These server names can also be used as outgoing mail (SMTP) servers for systems on the ECE/CIS network. These servers also support using TLS for SMTP, which has the advantage of sending the message from your system to the server over an encrypted channel. They also support SMTP AUTH with TLS, which means the sender is authenticated using their username and password. As a result you may use the ECE/CIS mail servers as the outgoing server from a client anywhere in the world. To do this set your mail reader to Use TLS, if available. You will then be prompted for your password when trying to send the first message of a session.

To avoid the unknown SSL certificate window the smtp server cert for mail.eecis is here and the cert for mail.acad.ece is here. Although this method is unsupported, advanced users may convert this certificate for use in Microsoft Outlook with the Root CA HOW-TO.

Unauthenticated mail relaying from hosts not on ECE/CIS networks is disabled. If you do not use TLS or SSL for SMTP and you connect from home using ppp (dialup), mail.udel.edu should be used as the outgoing mail server. If you use a cable modem, DSL, or another ISP and do not use TLS for SMTP then you must use the mail server your ISP provides as the outgoing server. Note that the From: address can be set to anything you like in most readers.

An example of setting up Thunderbird is explained below.

The mail.eecis.udel.edu server handles mail for the following equivalent domains @eecis.udel.edu, @cis.udel.edu, @ece.udel.edu.

The mail server had a major upgrade at the beginning of Summer 2006. Read the announcement ? for more info.

2. Supported mail readers

The supported mail readers installed and maintained for ECE/CIS supported systems are Thunderbird, Webmail and pine. Continue reading for detailed information about each.

3. Thunderbird

Thunderbird is an easy to use email client with features such as message filters and junkmail features. To use it just run thunderbird from an X session.

3.1 Setting up Thunderbird

When Thunderbird is first run, the Account Wizard dialog box is displayed, allowing the user to create a new account.
1. If this is not your first time running Thunderbird, access the Account Wizard through the Edit menu by selecting Account Settings, or through the Tools menu on Windows XP.
In the Account Settings dialog box, choose Add Account.
Choose Email account, and click Next.
Enter your name and eecis email address (USER@eecis.udel.edu for example).
Select IMAP for your incoming server, and use "mail.eecis.udel.edu" (research accounts) or "mail.ecl.udel.edu" (academic accounts) for both the Incoming and Outgoing Server (if available).
Your Incoming User Name is the same.
Title this account whatever you'd like.
After you finish, you must click Edit (Tools menu on Windows XP), Account Settings to reach the Account Settings dialog box. On the left menu, click Server Settings. Use SSL secure connection.

Using ECE/CIS To Send Mail

As mentioned, ECE/CIS mail servers can be used for the outgoing server. For hosts that are on ECE/CIS networks only selecting No for Use secure connection: is fine. For mobile computers one can select either TLS, if available or SSL, which will result in Thunderbird asking for your password to authenticate you when sending the first (and only first) message of a session. When TLS is used the message is sent encrypted from your system to the server, and you are also authenticated as the sender. SSL is suggested when off-campus as some ISPs will block the port used by TLS. The certificates for the smtp servers are available for mail.eecis is here and the cert for mail.acad.ece is here.

NOTE: Authenticated email (SASL) is filtered/scored to prevent your email from being marked as SPAM when using off-campus networks/hot-spots

Thunderbird 1.5 How-to

Access the Accounts Settings dialog box by choosing the Tools menu, and clicking Account Settings...
Click Outgoing Server (SMTP) on the left side to see this display.
Choose your eecis or ecl SMTP server, and click Edit...
- The SMTP Server dialog box will appear.
Choose Use name and password, and enter your username in the field.
Choose Use secure connection: TLS, if available, to use TLS authentication when accessing ECE/CIS mail servers. You can also choose SSL as a secure connection option.
- Note that you will be prompted for the imap password and smtp server password each once per session. For most people this is the same password, however Thunderbird does ask once for each protocol.
- Also, TLS, if available is suggested instead of TLS in case if the feature ever needs to be turned off systems will still work without TLS on campus without being reconfigured.

Security Certificates in Thunderbird

The first time you log in to check your mail, you will be asked to accept the SSL security certificate. Accept it permanently so that you won't be asked again. Your mail should now be available. Alternatively, (and more securely) the certificate for mail.eecis.udel.edu is here and the cert for mail.ecl.udel.edu is here. Importing these certificates is straightforward in Thunderbird:

These options are found in the Privacy tab of the Options/Preferences Dialog.
- On Solaris, the Preferences dialog can be reached by choosing the Edit menu, then Preferences.
- In Windows, this dialog can be reached by choosing Tools, then Options.

Click the Privacy icon, then the Security tab, to find the "View Certificates button".
In the Certificate Manager, choose the Web Sites tab to see all certificates on file which identify web sites.
Click the Import button to import ECE/CIS or ECL certificates (links in previous paragraph).
To use this certificate, select it and click Edit.
Select "Trust the authenticity of this certificate", and click OK to close out the dialogs.

Message Filters

One of the major features of Thunderbird is being able use the junkmail features to filter spam. One can filter junkmail that the server detects as spam into a separate mail folder. Also, one can run the junkmail controls to detect more mail as being spam.

Message filters will perform actions such as moving or deleting on incoming messages matching certain subject or body text, among other options. To use Message Filters, use the following instructions:

Click Tools from the menu bar, then click Message Filters...
Click the New... button to add a new filter.

From the Filter Rules dialog, you can match certain characteristics and then perform actions on messages that match those values. For example, to have Thunderbird automatically move junk mail messages to the Junk Mail folder, or delete them, do the following: Title your filter with a Filter name; this can be anything.

Next, choose Match any of the following.
From the dropdown box that says Subject, click Customize... and use "X-Spam-Status".
- This is a parameter ECE/CIS mail servers add to all incoming messages that are detected as spam by SpamAssassin.
Make sure the verb is "contains", and use "Yes" in the text box.
Under Perform these actions: first, Set Junk Status to: Junk, and click +.
Next, Move Message to: and choose a Junk E-mail folder either on your local machine, or on your account.
Click OK, and Run Now to make certain no "clean" mail gets mistakenly marked as Junk. Other filters can be added using the same procedure.

Junk Mail Controls

Instead of using the mail server's spam catching utility and message filters, one can have Firefox learn from scratch what mail should be considered Junk and what should be marked as Not Junk. To enable this Adaptive filter, click Tools from the menu bar, then Junk Mail Controls... Configure Junk Settings for your ECE/CIS E-mail account, and click the Adaptive Filter tab to mark the checkbox to enable the filter. Return to the Settings tab to perform actions on mail marked as Junk. Note: it is recommended not to move or delete Junk mail automatically, as the adaptive filter will take a few weeks to learn what mail is junk and what is not. It is recommended to Move messages manually marked as Junk to the Junk folder for convenience. Settings can be changed as per the user's preference.

Subscribing to Folders

Subscribing to folders allows one's personal folders to be accessed through Thunderbird. By default, most folders are not shown in the sidebar, or some folders may be shown that are not wanted. To access the Subscribe dialog, click File, then Subscribe. From here, choose the correct ECE/CIS e-mail Account, and check or uncheck the boxes next to mail folders. Every file and folder in your home directory will be shown, so only known mail folders should be enabled. If you have trouble, contact labstaff through the Help Request System.

4. Webmail

ECE/CIS maintains a webmail client that will allow you to log in and read/send email from any browser. You may also log into this system from anywhere in the world to use your email. To access our webmail system, use one of the following links:

For research accounts (@eecis.udel.edu):	https://webmail.eecis.udel.edu
For academic accounts (@acad.ece.udel.edu):	https://webmail.acad.ece.udel.edu

Some people experience performance issues with webmail. This is usually do to sorting the messages of large mailboxes. The webmail interface can sort on the From, Date or Subject headers. This works fine for small mailboxes, but can be slow when left on for large mail boxes. The sort preferences are saved when you log out and are done every time you log into webmail. Next to the From, Date and Subject header line you'll see either a small rectangle or triangle. If all three are small rectangles then sorting is not being done on any of the three and you should be fine. If you want to sort on one then click on the small rectangle and a triangle pointing up will appear to sort in one direction. If you click the triangle it will then point down to sort in the other direction. If you click on the down triangle it should then go back to a rectangle with no sorting. If you experience performance issues and have a triangle next to any of the headers click it once or twice to make it into a rectangle and see if you performance issue improves.

5. Sorting and Filtering Mail

NOTE: This documentation has been updated to cover the ECE/CIS mail server upgrade on May 31, 2006.

Procmail is an email processing application that can be used to sort mail into different mailboxes, filter mail, and forward incoming mail, as well as other tasks. All of its configuration is done through a .procmailrc file located in all users' home directories on the mail server. The mail server home directories are not available on other hosts and the only way to edit/update this file is through a web interface at:

Research Users:	https://webmail.eecis.udel.edu/webproc
Academic Users:	https://webmail.acad.ece.udel.edu/webproc

This system for updating procmail rules now also works for pseudo users. Someone that has access to a pseudo user (or group) account should use their own password to login as the pseudo user.

Note that the .procmailrc in your general home directory is no longer used. Also ~/.forward is no longer used. All users have their email delivered using procmail and there is a default .procmailrc installed. That default file deletes obvious spam and filters other suspected spam into a folder called "spammail". This default behavior can be changed using the web interface.Note: All changes with the web interface may take up to 5 minutes to take effect in the mail system.

The Basic Preferences page of the web interface contains checkboxes that allow users to select the behavior they want. The supported behaviors are:

"Default behavior" - deleting obvious spam, filtering the rest of suspected spam into spammail folder
Deleting all spam
Filtering all spam into spammail folder
Forwarding all messages
Setting a vacation reply message

After selecting the checkboxes desired, press the submit button at the bottom of the page. This will write the proper recipes to your procmail file.

The Add A New Recipe page allows for more specific filtering, forwarding, and blocking rules. The procmail log file shows where each email gets delivered and can be viewed from the View Your Procmail log file page. Users can still edit their file by hand in the Edit Procmail RC By Hand Page.

The following gives some information about procmail recipes:

NOTE: When referring to folders, the format must be ".folder.subfolder1.subfolder2/" So if you want to filter into the folder 'testfolder', you would need to enter '.testfolder/'. And if you want to filter into 'classemails/CIS181', you would need to enter '.classemails.CIS181/' This only applies while editing by hand. The following info would be for users using the "Edit Procmeail RC By Hand" link. It is suggested that you do most things through rest of the interface and only edit by hand if the other ways do not suit your needs.

To filter mail sent to a mailing list:

:0
* ^TO_mailinglistname
.listmail/

Each of the 3 lines are required. The :0 starts off the recipe In the second line replace mailinglistname with the name of the mailing list that appears in the headers. The TO_ is a macro that will search the To: and Cc: headers, etc. The third line is the folder to put the message in. The actually folder name would then be listmail in your email client. Do not specify full paths to the folder names. The folder names must start with a . and have a trailing /. The trailing / is the only / allowed.

To filter mail using the From line:

:0
* ^From:.*someone
.mailfromsomeone/

To destroy mail from someone (spammers for example) do:

:0 
* ^From:.*spammersaddr
/dev/null

Where spammersaddr appears in the From line and we send this message to /dev/null (trash).

To filter using the body of the message:

:0 B
* I send you this file in order to have your advice
/dev/null

This will destroy messages that have that line of text in their body.

To learn how to use Procmail beyond the scope of this document, zer0's FAQ is a good place to look. Also, the man pages for procmail, procmailex, and procmailrc contain valuable information.

6. Forwarding mail

To have all of your email forwarded to another address use ECE/CIS WebProc as described above, and enter the email address to forward to. The .forward file is no longer used. Acad users should use the ACAD WebProc instead.

The Procmail recipe to forward looks like this:

:0
! emailaddr@forward-to-here.domain

7. Vacation, Automatic reply

To give an "out of office" or vacation automatic reply use ECE/CIS WebProc as described above. A custom message can be entered. Acad users should use the ACAD WebProc instead.

Two procmail recipes will be used and they will look like:

:0 Whc: vacation.lock
* $^To:.*\<$\LOGNAME\>
* !^FROM_DAEMON
* !^X-Loop: $LOGNAME@mail.eecis.udel.edu 
| /usr/local/bin/formail -rD 8192 /usa/$LOGNAME/triplog

:0 ehc
| (/usr/local/bin/formail -rI"Precedence: junk" \
-A"X-Loop: $LOGNAME@mail.eecis.udel.edu" ; \
cat /usa/$LOGNAME/tripnote \
) | $SENDMAIL -oi -t

8. Filtering unwanted mail - SPAM

Procmail can also filter SPAM emails. ECE/CIS mail servers automatically mark messages it believes to be SPAM with a flag which Procmail can detect and use. By default obvious spam will be deleted by default and other suspected spam will be put into a "spammail" folder. Use ECE/CIS WebProc as described above to change or add other rules. Acad users should use the ACAD WebProc instead.

The code to filter spam into "spammail" looks like:

:0:
* ^X-Spam-Status: Yes
.spammail/

9. Mail Disk Usage

The WebProc page page also has a link to show your current disk usage used on the mail server. Use ECE/CIS WebProc as described above and follow the link for your disk usage. Acad users should use the ACAD WebProc instead.

The data is generated once in the morning for each user.

10. Attached files processing

The ECE/CIS mail servers will allow or block attachments based on their extensions.

Attachments with the following names extensions are removed from incoming mail:

winmail.dat, .exe .com .vbs .vbe .dll .ocx .cmd .bat
.pif .lnk .hlp .msi .msp .reg .sct .inf .asd .cab
.shs .shb .scr .cpl .chm .wsf .wsh .wsc .hta .vcd
.vcf .eml .nws

Attachments with the following extensions are allowed through:

.doc .dot .txt .tex .dvi .rtf .pdf .ps .htm .html
.xls .xlw .xlt .csv .wk1 .wk2 .wk3 .wk4
.ppt .pps .pot
.jpeg .gif .png .tiff .bmp .psd .pcx .jpg
.vsd .drw .cdr .swf
.mp3 .avi .mpeg .mov .ram .mid .ogg .mpg
.zip .gz .rar .tgz .bz2 .tar
.inc .asm .patch .java .php .jsp .bas

Any extension not listed above is renamed (DEFANG) and allowed.

11. Sending mail with pine prompts for password

By default, Pine will prompt for a password when sending mail. Normally, sending mail should not require authentication. Pine prompts for a password because it wants to save a copy of the sent message to the sent-mail folder. This can be disabled by performing the following steps: After starting pine, press the 'S' key for Setup. Press 'C' to open the Config menu. "default-fcc" should be <No Value Set: using "sent-mail">. Using the arrow keys, highlight "default-fcc", press Return to edit the value, and remove any text using Backspace. Press Return to accept, and 'E' to Exit Setup. 'Y' will accept the changes. Sending mail should no longer require authentication.

12. Reading mail for pseudo accounts (eecis_su)

A pseudo account is one that users use the eecis_su command to access. These accounts do not have passwords. To read mail for one of these accounts use your own password. The mail server will accept the password of any user that is in the access list for the pseudo account.

13. Graduate Student Mailing List

ECE/CIS does not manage the graduate student mailing list, central campus does. More information can be found in the FAQ. Any problems with any central system services can be handled with the IT Help Center Help Request Form.

14. Email Archiving

All Email is stored on the Email/IMAP server in custom formats to optimize storage/Search/Retrieval of messages. If your Email quota begins to fill-up, or for Email maintenance, you should periodically archive old email messages and remove them from the Email Server. The best way we've found to archive email is using the PINE program, but Thunderbird can archive email also. (Webmail is not suitible for archiving at this time)

14.1 Archiving with PINE:

Run pine from the unix prompt and login as normal
Press L, or highlight FOLDER LIST and select " Mail on mail.eecis.udel.edu/ssl"
Highlight the IMAP folder you wish to archive using the arrow keys
Press E, access EXPORT
You can now accept the default filename, or enter a new one, and all the email messages in the selected IMAP folder will be stored in that filename in your unix home directory.
After verifying the Archive completed successfully, you can erase all the email from that IMAP folder.

14.2 Archiving with Thunderbird:

Note: These same procedures can be used to rename folders onto the IMAP server, instead of archiving them to the Local Folders of your workstation

Archiving folders other than Inbox

Start Thunderbird and login as normal
Select any IMAP folder from under the mail.eecis.udel.edu Server, and drag it to the "Local Folders" section of that same frame of the Thunderbird window.
- The Generic Path to "Local Folders" can be found in Thunderbird by Right Clicking on the "Local Folders" IMAP Heading and selecting Properties.
- Normally on UNIX, this will create an archive of the IMAP folder in your HOME directory, under .thunderbird sub-directory. Under there will be a "random" named sub-directory ending with .default". Under that will continue the path through Mail and "Local Folders" where you should find the archive.
- Normally on Windows, the "Local Folders" is usually kept in C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\RANDOM.default\Mail\Local Folders\

Archiving INBOX with Thunderbird

Because the new IMAP server treats INBOX as top-level directory on the server, dragging and dropping it to "Local Folders" will result in EVERY IMAP folder being copied.

Create a new folder under "Local Folders" named inbox-archive
Open the INBOX folder under mail.eecis.udel.edu, then in the top frame where all the message subjects are displayed, Press the Control and "A" keys (Ctrl-A) at the same time, to highlight ALL of the messages
Still in that frame with all the (now) highlighted messages, Right Mouse Click and choose "Copy To" and follow it to "Local Folders", and then to the newly created folder (inbox-archive).
You should now have an archive of your Inbox in the same path as listed above for your "Local Folders" on your local machine.

15. Class Mailing Lists and Central udel.edu Email

Information regarding class mailing lists and central udel.edu can be found on the Central Services page.

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