The Nevis mail domain is "nevis.columbia.edu". When you are given an account on the Linux cluster, a mail account is established for you with the same name as your user ID. For example, if your Linux user account is "jsmith", your e-mail address is "jsmith@nevis.columbia.edu".

You are not limited the mail readers described below. If you wish to use other mail clients such as mail, mutt, or Mulberry, feel free. However, you'll be responsible for configuring those clients yourself.

You may want to review discussions of the differences between POP versus IMAP, or how to store your mail files on the mail server.

Alpine

Alpine is a text-only screen-based mail program; the previous version was called "pine", and this version is still present on some older systems at Nevis, so if the alpine command doesn't work, try pine. It was designed by the University of Washington to have a large set of features, and yet be easy for novices to use. Alpine displays a list of your available options at the bottom of the screen, along with the keypresses to invoke them, so you always know what you're able to do. You can learn about alpine from within the program; just type alpine to run the program, and type ? whenever you need help.

Alpine is full-featured mail program, including mail aliases (which are called address books), folders for organizing mail messages, and full support for MIME enclosures. Since it is text-based, it can be run from remote computer systems via ssh, and the user interface will be the same as if you were running it on a terminal at Nevis. Alpine supports the IMAP protocol, and you can use it to see mail on remote computer systems that run IMAP.

A particular advantage of Alpine is that its the simplest of all mail programs to configure at Nevis (at least, on the cluster). Just type alpine and you're all set; you don't have to worry about mail servers, certificates, authentication, and so forth.

However, it's quicker to specifically identify yourself as a particular user who's reading your mail using the IMAP server. To do this, from the Alpine main menu type "S", then "C", then move the cursor down to the inbox path option, and type:

If you use the above method, you'll have to type in your password every time you start up Alpine. This web page describes how to avoid this.

On many systems, Alpine switches the colors in the display window to white text on a black background. If you find this annoying, you use this command before running alpine:

A minor disadvantage of alpine is it uses pico as its default editor for composing messages. Pico is a full-featured editor, but it does not enable a backup buffer; if you experience an error while composing a message you can lose your work.

You can configure Alpine to use emacs to compose mail messages instead. To do this, from the Alpine main menu type "S", then "C", then move the cursor down to the editor option, and change it to emacs -nw. You can also use vi if you wish. Both of these editors create backup files, so if you experience a problem after you've spent an hour composing a message, you have a chance to recover it.

Thunderbird, Mozilla, Netscape, Mail.app, Eudora, Outlook, and other graphical clients

Programs such as Thunderbird offer mail functions controlled by a GUI ("Graphical User Interface"). They have many options that simply can't be offered by a text-based program (such as drag-and-drop manipulation of files). Depending on the level of IMAP support they offer, they not only have folder organization of messages, but allow folders within folders for a full hierarchical structure of your mail.

Although we support using Outlook, Entourage, and other Microsoft-authored mail readers at Nevis, I don't encourage their use. Unfortunately, for technical and social reasons, the Microsoft mail readers are prone to security problems. Please consider using Thunderbird, Netscape, Eudora, or some other non-Microsoft program instead.

If you use a graphical mail program, here are some items to check in your configuration:

• You have to decide whether to use POP or IMAP to read your mail. The difference between the two is described in a separate web page.

• You also have to think about where your mail files will be stored (in your home directory, on the mail server, etc.). This web pages discusses some options.

• The name of the account can be anything. I use "Nevis". The name of the account has nothing to do with how your mail reader connects to the mail server.

• Make sure your mail identity is <youraccount>@nevis.columbia.edu.

  Alternate: your mail identity is <youraccount>, and your mail domain is nevis.columbia.edu.

• Your IMAP, POP, and SMTP server names are all mail.nevis.columbia.edu.

  Alternate: If you wish, you may use any of the following aliases for clarity:

  imap.nevis.columbia.edu

  pop3.nevis.columbia.edu

  smtp.nevis.columbia.edu

• Turn on all the authentication options. You need authentication to both send your mail (SMTP authentication) and to read your mail (IMAP or POP authentication).

  Do not use "SPA" or "secure password authentication", which is a different protocol not supported by the Nevis mail server.

• Some reminders:
  • POP and IMAP are two different ways to read your mail; you can use either one as you choose.
  • SMTP is the way your mail program sends the mail.
  • In general, you must use SMTP to send your mail (there are no other popular e-mail methods).
  • If your e-mail address ends in nevis.columbia.edu you must use the Nevis mail server mail.nevis.columbia.edu to send mail.
  • Do not use the Nevis mail server if you want your e-mail address to end in anything except nevis.columbia.edu.
  • In particular, if you'd prefer to use your Columbia University UNI account to manage your mail, do not use set your identity to <account>@columbia.edu and try to use mail.nevis.columbia.edu as your SMTP server; use Columbia's SMTP server: send.cc.columbia.edu.

• Ports

  If your mail reader supports it, I highly recommend that you use SSL encryption. This assures that your password is not sent over the network in plain text. Most mail readers (though not all) support this, even Alpine (note the ssl tag in the configuration above).

  Aside from selecting the option in your mail reader, you'll have to set or confirm that your mail reader is using the correct ports to access the mail server:

  • If your mail reader does not support SSL, use port 110 for POP3, port 143 for IMAP, and port 25 for SMTP.

    Some sites block off port 25 with their firewall; the goal is to force you to use their mail server. As an alternative, you can try accessing the Nevis mail server via port 587.

  • If your mail reader supports TLS or SSL, use port 995 for POP3 and port 993 for IMAP. You can use the same ports for SMTP with or without SSL: 25 normally, 587 if a site has blocked port 25; the mail server can recognize when your mail program wants to use SSL and make the switch.

    You can also use port 465 for SMTP+SSL. Try this if neither ports 25 nor 587 seem to work when sending mail via SSL (Outlook Express is an example).

    No matter which ports you use with SSL, you have to bypass certificate validation. If you don't, you may get warning messages about how the Nevis certificate cannot be validated or trusted.

• You can find a quick summary on a separate web page.

Web mail

A web-based mail program, SquirrelMail, is available on our web server. The URL is http://www.nevis.columbia.edu/webmail.

This is not a perfect facility. It is not meant to be. It is provided primarily so that if the only convenient form of internet access is a web browser, you can still check your mail.

Web mail at Nevis requires an SSL certificate for encryption, to assure that your password does not go over the network in plain text. Most web browsers (including Firefox and Internet Explorer) support SSL. If you only have access to a web browser that does not support SSL (or HTTPS protocol), or cannot load arbitrary certificates, then you will not be able to use Nevis web mail.

The most visible problem with SquirrelMail is that if your IMAP directory is NFS mounted to your home directory (e.g., it's located in /a/mail/folders/) then you will not be able to look at the contents of your folders, only your INBOX. To get around this, create an alias in your home directory; e.g.,

If you name the alias anything other than mail (e.g., you don't want to use the contents of your mail folder for IMAP) then you'll have to change the name of your base IMAP folder in SquirrelMail's folder options.

You may also have to "subscribe" to your IMAP folders using Squirrelmail's "Folders" link; scroll to the bottom of the page, ctrl-click on all the folders you want, and hit "Subscribe".

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