Nevis1 Special
Mail Services Terminated
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On 16:00 Mon 12-Apr-2004, I plan to change the mail software
configuration on nevis1 to be the same as that any of the
machines on the Linux
cluster. The IP name mail.nevis.columbia.edu will be
changed to point to the mail server, franklin. This web page
discusses:
what will be done,
how this will affect you (if at all),
why this is being done,
and the answers to a couple of frequently-asked questions.
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The final transfer of all remaining mail services from nevis1
to franklin will take place at 16:00 Mon 12-Apr-2004. The
transition began
will the installation of the new mail server, and continued when I turned
off mail processing on nevis1. With this final change,
nevis1 will be out of the "mail server business," and offer no
more mail facilities than any box on the Linux cluster.
There are two changes that will be made:
- Even though the bulk of the mail services have been transferred to
franklin, the IP name mail.nevis.columbia.edu has
continued to point to nevis1. The mail server has received
every other mail alias I could think of:
smtp.nevis.columbia.edu
pop3.nevis.columbia.edu
imap.nevis.columbia.edu
At 4PM Mon 12-Apr-2004, the name mail.nevis.columbia.edu will
be point to the mail server franklin. It may take as much as
a day for the new name propagate through the Internet, but Nevis and
Columbia systems will see the change almost immediately.
- The IMAP and POP3 servers on nevis1 will be shut down. If
you want to read your mail, you must do so through the mail server.
Before you panic, read the rest of this page. You can still read your
mail on nevis1, but you'll have to tell your
mail reader to use the main mail server to access your mail.
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How will this affect you?
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Chances are that you won't notice any difference.
Here are the main exceptions:
- If your mail reader was configured to read your mail from
mail.nevis.columbia.edu, the program will now attempt to
access franklin instead of nevis1. This will probably
be transparent to you, unless:
- If you still read your mail on nevis1, either through Pine
or Netscape, you'll probably have to change your mail reader
configuration. The directions
on what to change are available via the main Nevis mail page.
Here are the main reasons for the change:
- The version of the mail software on nevis1 is old,
unsupported, and represents a security risk. In order to upgrade it,
I'd have to upgrade the entire operating system. It's simpler to just
shut off the mail services.
- By reducing the state of the mail services on nevis1 to the
same as any other machine on the Linux cluster, it encourages
migration to the the cluster. If your only use of nevis1 is to
run pine to read your mail, you might as well switch to using one of
the Linux
boxes associated with your working group; there will be no
advantage to using nevis1 anymore.
- It makes logical sense for the name
mail.nevis.columbia.edu to point to the mail server. If you
look at the instructions
on how to configure your mail reader, you'll notice that you can use
every alias for the mail server except the most logical one:
mail.nevis.columbia.edu. By changing that, it becomes easier
for everyone to configure their mail clients.
- By turning off the IMAP and POP3 services on nevis1, we
keep the super-clever folks from putting
nevis1.nevis.columbia.edu (or even 129.236.252.3) in
the mail reader's configuration. Anyone with a problem reading mail
on the Linux cluster should let me
know what it is and we'll fix the problem. It is counter-productive
to avoid such problems by continuing to the older, less-secure
software on nevis1
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Frequently Asked Questions
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- Is mail being turned off entirely on nevis1?
- No, it's not. It would be more accurate to say that mail
processing is being turned off on nevis1. After this
change, all mail sent from nevis1 will be forwarded to
the main mail server. All mail that you want to read on
nevis1 must be fetched from the mail server. This is the same
as on any other machine on the Linux cluster.
- What about mail that's sent to old-style mail addresses like jsmith@nevis1.columbia.edu?
- That was already taken care of at the time that franklin became the main
mail
server. Mail sent to addresses of the following form will reach you without any problems:
jsmith@nevis.columbia.edu
jsmith@nevis1.nevis.columbia.edu
jsmith@nevis1.columbia.edu
to the Nevis Mail Page.
to the Nevis Computing Page.
to the Nevis Home Page.
Send any comments or questions to the
webmaster.