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<< General FAQ | FAQ Index | XMPP Mini-FAQ >>

The main user email system is the Groupware Mail app. However, if you have a regular UNIX system account on certain machines in the Vistua Intranet, you may have access to a UNIX mail service also.

Please note: 99% of all users will not be interested in this information. If you check your mail through the Groupware Portal (mail.vistua.com) you do not need to worry about this in most cases. If you do not understand what is meant by the terminology in this document, you don't have to worry about anything.

1.  What is UNIX System mail?

UNIX System mail refers to ingoing and outgoing email services which are provided by the UNIX system to all users with a regular UNIX login account on some machines in the Vistua Intranet.

2.  What is the Relation Between Groupware and UNIX System mail?

None, they are totally separate systems. If you have a Groupware account though, your UNIX mail is forwarded there by default.

3.  How can I use UNIX System mail?

UNIX System mail use requires the use of the UNIX shell, if you are not comfortable with the shell, this technology is not for you. Note: You cannot check your Groupware mail this way.

You can use the mailx program or mutt to send and receive mail. NOTE: by default your UNIX System mail account is configured to forward all of your mail to this account to your groupware mail account, if you have one.

4.  Configuring Forwarding

If you have a Groupware mail account, your UNIX mail is forwarded there by default. If you do not have a Groupware account your UNIX mail will be accumulated in the system mail-spool and stay there, allowing you to read it with mutt or mailx.

The system can forward to any account. If your primary email account is not with Vistua Groupware, you can easily cause UNIX to forward your mail to, for instance, a Yahoo! or Hotmail mailbox. All you have to do is edit the file ~/.forward, creating it if it does not exist, and entering a single email address as the sole contents of that file, no spaces or carriage returns. If you have Groupware mail, your Groupware mail address (you@vistua.com) will be here.

To disable forwarding, and allow the system to keep your UNIX mail in the system mail-spool (so you can read it with mailx or mutt) simply delete this file. More Info on .forward

IMPORTANT: It is possible to use the ~/.forward file to forward all your messages to multiple email addresses, this is not allowed.

5.  Mailx or Mutt?

A version of the standard UNIX mail command, mailx(1), is available. You may invoke it with the command mailx or mail, the commands are identical. Mailx, in spite of its name is not an X Window application.

Mailx is a very basic and difficult to use program which is recommended only for advanced users. Mailx is an improved version of the original AT&T/Bell-Labs mail client. It is very old and is approaching obsolescence, for instance it doesn't really support MIME (attachments, non-ASCII character-sets) very well. Here is a quick reference sheet for Mailx

Mutt(1) is recommended unless you have a funky terminal which does not support n-curses. Mutt is a powerful UNIX program and if you are used to Outlook and Thunderbird you may not think it is very user-friendly. Mutt is not difficult to learn, though. Here is an introduction to Mutt

6.  Is POP/IMAP or SMTP Available?

POP/IMAP retrieval is not possible at this time. Obviously a local SMTP Mail Transport Agent is running (or no messages could be sent or received at all) however remote SMTP auth is unavailable for security reasons.

7.  Can I send mail outside the Intranet this way?

Yes, you can send Internet Email this way. Obviously you must enter a fully qualified RFC5322 email address.

We ask that you not send or intentionally receive high volumes of mail using this facility. If you would like to do that please use your Groupware Account, if you have one, or ask for one if you don't. Generally, if you send or receive more than forty messages a day this is "high volume use".

8.  Is it OK if I use this as my Primary Email Account?

In a word, no. Not because it's prohibited but because it's not a good idea.

System Email is not an official product of The Vistua Network. It is not as reliable as the Groupware Portal, or any third-party system such as Hotmail or Yahoo! or Gmail. The System Email may go down temporarily from time-to-time. For instance, if a Kernel patch is installed the host may be restarted. Because of the way the Intranet and LAN infrastructure works, various parts of the Intranet may periodically change public IPs automatically and unpredictably. We've never had this cause any problems but it might, in theory, because there could be a delay updating public DNS records because of deficiencies in the way the Internet DNS infrastructure works.

9.  What's my UNIX email address?

It's (your-uid)@(your-hostname).vistua.net, for instance if your uid is smith and your hostname is warwick (both fictional) your UNIX email address would be smith@warwick.vistua.net.

Categories: Workstation, Email, Unix, Internet