getting started with email


Certainly, your UW Math experience would not be complete without email. So here's the big moment where we reveal to you your brand new, easy-to-remember Math Department email address. It's username@math.wisc.edu (where username is your authorized UNIX account username).

Now, to actually send and receive mail, you need to choose a favorite email program. Here are some general Guidelines:


Cross Platform

Webmail You can read your math e-mail through our webmail server. Just point your web browser to webmail.math.wisc.edu and login with your Math Department username/password. Note: you should use a current version of your browser.

Mozilla Thunderbird This is a powerful, intuitive cross-platform email program that works well with IMAP and Maildir (our math mail format) It's great for folks who like a point-and-click environment, and those familiar with Eudora or Outlook will find it really easy. To find out more about it, please visit http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

Thunderbird Setup:
In Account Settings:
Server Settings:
Server Type: IMAP Mail Server
Server Name: mailhost.math.wisc.edu Port: 143
User Name:
Use Secure Connection: TLS
Use Secure Authentication: OFF

Advanced Button -> IMAP Server directory: (leave empty)
Note: Older versions of thunderbird may not have a TLS option. For these, use:
Port: 993 with "Use secure connection (SSL)"

Outgoing Server (SMTP):
(If what you have now is working, you can leave it.)
Server Name: mailhost.math.wisc.edu
Use name and password: YES
Username:
Port: 25, TLS
If this doesn't work with your ISP (e.g. Resnet), try
Port: 465, SSL OR Port: 587, TLS


Email Programs for UNIX

Before you read on, here's a cautionary note. In general mail does not work from our Sun computers. When using a Sun Computer, DO NOT click the email icon (a picture of an envelope) on the CDE Taskbar. It will start a disfunctional email program that'll only upset you.

Pine. This is a simple, easy-to-use, popular text-based email program. To start it up, open a terminal window and type pine. You will have to authenticate with your Math Department username/password. The program has a help section if you run into trouble. Alternatively, you can peruse an extensive online tutorial here.

Nail. This is an IMAP compliant mail reader similar to unix mail.

Mutt. This is an IMAP compliant mail reader similar to elm.
Warning: You will not be able to access your maildir folders if you use mutt.

Procmail. This is not actually an email program but rather an automatic message processing program for more advanced users. To set up Procmail, click here.


Email Programs for MacOS

MAIL.APP This is the native e-mail program for MacOS X.

In Preferences -> Accounts:
Account Type: IMAP
Incoming Mail Server: mailhost.math.wisc.edu
Username/Password:
Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP):
(If what you have now is working, you can leave it.)
Server Port: 25 (If this doesn't work with your ISP, try 587 or 465 instead)
Use Secure Sockets Layer: Checked
Authentication: Password
Advanced Tab:
IMAP Prefix: (leave blank)
Port: 993
Check Use SSL
Authentication: Password


Email Programs for Windows

Microsoft Outlook. This email program is much like Eudora Pro (which is not supported by us or by DoIT), but, for security reasons, we don't advise you use it. Nonetheless, if you wish to proceed at your own risk and set up Microsoft Outlook, follow these instructions:

Setting up a mail account for Outlook: Outgoing server (SMTP) (Don't do anything if it is working for you)
  • Check This server requires an SSL-secured connection (SSL)
  • Click OK
    • Microsoft Outlook Express Slightly different from Outlook.

    Vacation

    When you go on vacation, you may want to notify people that you will not be reading your e-mail for a while. The unix vacation command will allow you to set it up. However, if you run the vacation command in the normal way, your incoming mail will bypass our spam filters and forward a lot of spam to your forwarding address. This is a better way to set up vacation e-mail.

    SPAM

    Spam is an increasingly prevalent annoyance with e-mail. To cut down on spam, login to one of our login machine (login.math.wisc.edu) and type mailfilter. You will be prompted for the rest. This command creates a .procmailrc file and a .spamassassin directory in your account. It will also put spam into a spam folder in your Maildir directory.
    These spam folders can get very large and count against your disk quota. To prevent them from getting to large, we will periodically cull them, removing spam messages more than 30 days old. You should check your spam folder to make sure that no false positives were put there.

    You can override the default spam filtering rules in two ways.
    1. If you would like to add/delete a specific address to the default spam rules, edit your ~/.spamassassin/user_prefs file as follows: (examples - whitelist rules say this is not spam, blacklist says it is)
      whitelist_from myfriend@somewhere.com
      whitelist_from *nwa.com

      blacklist_from *citibank.com
      blacklist_from spammer@spam.com
      remember to put whitelist rules before blacklist rules as rules are executed in the order they are listed.
    2. You can train your spam filter to recognize spam or it's opposite, known as ham. Your modifications are kept in your ~/.spamassassin/bayes_seen file. You cannot edit this file directly but you can tag mail as spam or ham, by typing one of the following pipe commands while viewing a message in pine:
      | sa-learn --spam
      | sa-learn --ham
      These commands tell spamassassin that messages like the one you are viewing should be tagged as spam (or ham). NOTE: to enable pipe commands in pine, you should have this line in your .pinerc file:
      feature-list=enable-unix-pipe-cmd

    Wiscmail

    Every employee of the University also has a Wiscmail account through DoIT. Click here for instructions on configuring your wiscmail account. This is separate from your Math Department account.