UT Physics E-Mail FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions -- And Answers!)

Table of Contents

Basic E-Mail questions

I have a UNIX account. Do I have an email address?
I want to find someone's email address. How do I find it?'

E-Mail client configuration

What is my SMTP server?
What is my POP3 server?
How do I set up my email client (Eudora, Outlook, etc.)?

Web E-mail

Do we have access to web based e-mail?
How can I use someone else's web based e-mail with my account?'

E-Mail Security

What is message defanging?
What is message massaging?
How can I access my E-Mail remotely?
How can I tell if mail to me was filtered as spam?

Forwarding E-Mail

How can I have my email forwarded to a different address?

Using the vacation program

How do make an automatic reply to messages I receive?
How do I enable the vacation program?
How do I disable the vacation program?
What should I put in my vacation reply message?

Basic E-Mail questions

Q: I have a UNIX account. Do I have an email address?
A: Yes. Your email address is your username @physics.utexas.edu. For example, if your login name is "username" then your email address is "username@physics.utexas.edu".

Q: I want to find someone's email address. How do I find it?'
A: You can find Physics email addresses at http://www.ph.utexas.edu/emailsearch.html. You can search all of UT by going to http://x500.utexas.edu/. Note that these services will only help you find addresses of UT students, faculty, and staff; if you need to find the address of someone at a different institution, you should check with their company or institution to see if they have a comparable service on their web site.

E-Mail client configuration

Q: What is my SMTP server?
A: Your SMTP server, sometimes called an outgoing mail server, should be set to mail.ph.utexas.edu

Q: What is my POP3 server?
A: Your pop3 server, sometimes called an incoming mail server, should be set to mail.ph.utexas.edu

Q: How do I set up my email client (Eudora, Outlook, etc.)?
A: See the E-Mail Access page for more information.

Web E-mail

Q: Do we have access to web based e-mail?
A: Yes. See the IMP FAQ for details.

Q: How can I use someone else's web based e-mail with my account?'
A: We do not support using other web based e-mail systems. See our IMP FAQ for information on our local web based e-mail system.

E-Mail Security

Q: What is message defanging?
A: E-Mail "defanging" is a way to protect E-Mail users and servers from malicious E-Mail messages. It attempts to "take the bite" out of malicious E-Mail messages such as viruses, trojan horses, buffer overflow exploits, shell script exploits, and other such attacks. For more information, see the E-Mail Security page at http://www.ph.utexas.edu/~help/e-mail/security.html.

Q: What is message massaging?
A: E-Mail message "massaging" is the process of attempting to make harmless changes to the formatting or syntax of a message, either to correct problems with it, protect against maliceous messages, or to work around errors in E-Mail client or server programs. For more information, see the E-Mail Security page at http://www.ph.utexas.edu/~help/e-mail/security.html.

Q: How can I access my E-Mail remotely?
A: For security reasons, we need to restrict access to our E-Mail systems from non-trusted locations. A list of supported access methods from various locations can be found at the E-Mail Security page at http://www.ph.utexas.edu/~help/e-mail/security.html.

Q: How can I tell if mail to me was filtered as spam?
A: You may see which mail addressed to you (for about the last month) was filtered by our system and not delivered to you. You can even request a copy of it or tell us that it isn't spam. For more information, see the E-Mail Security page at http://www.ph.utexas.edu/~help/e-mail/security.html.

Forwarding E-Mail

Q: How can I have my email forwarded to a different address?
A: There are two ways to accomplish this. If you are permanently closing your account (leaving U.T., etc.), you should ask us to set up an alias that will allow your old address to continue to work even after your account has been closed. If you are not closing your account, but want all email forwarded to a different address, you can create a .forward file. Open the file .forward in your home directory. (This file probably does not exist yet; you will create it.) Using your favorite text editor, type in the address to which you would like your mail to be forwarded. Save the file. Now all of your email will be forwarded to the specified address. To stop the forwarding, simply remove or rename the .forward file.

Note that any mail that is already in your mailbox will not be forwarded; if you want to have access to these messages while you are on vacation, etc., you may want to consider using the Web Mail interface.

Using the vacation program

Q: How do make an automatic reply to messages I receive?
A: This can be accomplished with the vacation program. (NOTE: This will not work if you use the VAX for E-mail). The vacation program reads incoming mail and automatically generates a canned reply to it. The name comes from the fact that the most common form of canned reply is to inform the sender that you are on vacation and will not be reachable until a given date.

Vacation programs must be used with care. They can cause problems, especially when they respond to mailing lists or other vacation programs.

The vacation program by default keeps track of who it has already sent a notice to and only resends to that same address once per week. It also tries to avoid known mailing lists, junk mail, and other vacation replies. But it can only do so much in this area, and even it does allow the user to over ride some of its safety features.

Because of this, you should temporarily unsubscribe from, or set to NOMAIL if possible, all mailing lists you are on before setting up auto-answering; otherwise, members of the mailing lists may find they are being flooded with canned messages by your vacation program. This is considered very rude behavior and will guarantee you quite a frosty reception on your return.

Q: How do I enable the vacation program?
A: You must login to one of the PCG Linux machines (linux1 through linux15 or twist).

The vacation program is incompatible with any existing .forward file you may have setup. Thus, if you already have a .forward file in your account that you wish to preserve, you should save it with the following command:

cp .forward .forward.save

The enable vacation notices, simply enter the vacation command as follows:

vacation
The vacation program will create several files in your account. As part of this, it will enter an editor to create your vacation reply message. A default message will be provided, which you can edit to your tastes. The default message will look something like:
Subject: away from my mail

I will not be reading my mail for a while. 
Your mail regarding "$SUBJECT" 
will be read when I return.
The message should contain a "Subject:" header line, which will be used as the subject line in all the reply messages. A default subject line is included, which you may edit to your tastes.

If the string $SUBJECT appears in the reply message, it is replaced with the subject of the original message when the reply is sent.

Q: How do I disable the vacation program?
A: You can disable the vacation program by simply removing the .forward file. This can be done with the following command:

rm -f .forward

If you had saved an old .forward file before enabling vacation, you should restore it now with the command:

mv .forward.save .forward

Q: What should I put in my vacation reply message?
A: It is a good idea to note the date at which you expect to resume reading your mail. It is also a good idea to provide information about an alternate contact person if one is available. For your own security, you should never tell them that you will be out of town, or any other information that may make you vulnerable to crime or harassment.


This page was last updated on Wed Jan 15 14:37:41 CST 2003