EMail

Your LIONS account, as a UNIX account, has email capability even though the official University email is provided by the central Lotus Notes servers. If you do not plan on reading your email thru LIONS, please create a .forward file to forward your email to another address; instructions on how to do this are listed below. To access your LIONS remotely, please keep reading; instructions on how to do this are also listed below.

In the LIONS environment, your incoming e-mail is saved in your home directory in a special directory called Mail. Due to the special requirements of the OpenAFS environment, instead of a mail file, email is stored as individual messages within the 'inbox' directory of your Mail directory. This is known as a 'MH' format inbox. This change makes your mail folder more robust in comparison to the standard "single file" mail folder. In addition, there are several mail clients which you can use to access your email.

Under the UNIX Environment

To access your email on one of the UNIX LIONS machines, you will log into either one of the sol-login machines or in one of the computer labs. Once you are logged in, you may run a shell-based mail client like 'pine' or 'mutt' (which have limited support for MH inboxes), or you may use one of the several MH type email clients, such as 'exmh', 'xmh', or 'mh-e'. Your mail will be stored on in your home directory, and will count against your disk quota. Also, it would be of benefit to learn the commands to help you process your mail and you will also need to learn to use a Unix text editor such as vi, emacs, or pico.

The main advantage of using a UNIX-based email client is that you can easily access your mail -- new and stored -- from anywhere you have Internet access. Many members of the University community use these systems since they want to be able to access their mail from computers other than their own. On the other hand, many of the console-based email clients like Pine are not as user-friendly as some PC clients like Mozilla, Outlook, and Thunderbird. In addition, since your email is stored in your home directory, your email inbox uses your disk quota. If you exceed your quota, any e-mail sent to your account will bounce back to the sender. If the e-mail program the sender used properly displays bounced messages, the sender will get a message saying that your mailbox is full. Since we are not capable of restoring messages that were not delivered, it is up to you to free up space in your home directory and notify the sender to resend the message. Please note that email messages that include HTML or other formatting codes will be difficult to read. Mutt can handle MIME attachments, but neither Pine nor Elm deal nicely with email attachments.

Using Remote Email Clients

A remote email client runs on your computer and, when instructed to do so, goes out and checks your email on the LIONS (or any other) system. Email can be stored on your personal computer or on the server. All processing happens on the personal computer.

Remote clients like Mozilla, Outlook, and Thunderbird have some advantages over shell-based clients. Because the mail can be stored on your own computer, your storage space is virtually unlimited. All remote clients easily handle attachments and HTML messages. You can access multiple email accounts within the client software.

Accessing Email using LIONS IMAP Server

You can access your LIONS email via the IMAP protocol. (POP is no longer supported.) Use the following configurations (your email client may call them something different - please see the documentation that comes with it for specifics):

Server Type:	IMAP
Server Host:	imap.lions2.odu.edu
Security:	Always Use SSL
Username:	your LIONS username
Password:	your LIONS password

Depending upon your mail client, your LIONS mailbox will appear under one of the following names:

    MHINBOX
    #MHINBOX
    #mhinbox
    #mh/inbox

If you are reading your email locally on a UNIX workstation, please do NOT set your mail client up to use IMAP/SMTP. Instead, set it up to read your Mail file directly using your client's MH support (Under LIONS, Pine is already preconfigured to do this), and invoke /usr/lib/sendmail directly for sending e-mail.

When configuring your SMTP server settings, note that it depends upon where you read your email:

• On-campus: If you are using a remote mail client like Mozilla, Eudora, or Outlook, set your SMTP server to smtp-auth.odu.edu. You will need to provide your ODU Lotus Notes user id and password to authenticate.
• Off-campus: You will need to use your Internet Service Provider's (i.e. AOL, Yahoo, Earthlink, MSN, etc.) SMTP server. We do not offer relay services if you are off campus. Most Internet Service Providers will allow using your @odu.edu or @lions.odu.edu email address in your From: or Reply-to:

Forwarding Your Email Elsewhere

If you will not be reading email via your LIONS account, you should forward it to a more frequently checked address. In most cases, you will want to forward your email to your ODU e-mail address. To forward your email in LIONS, you will need to create a .forward file. Unlike most UNIX/Linux systems, this file will need to reside in your Mail directory so that the mail server can access it. To set up this file, you can either use your favorite text editor and type in the e-mail address, or you can create the file on the command line as show below (PLEASE SUBSTITUTE jdoe@odu.edu WITH YOUR DESIRED FORWARDING ADDRESS - DO NOT USE THE LINE BELOW ASIS!)

echo 'jdoe@odu.edu' > $HOME/Mail/.forward

Once you've created the file, run the chk_mailbox (described in the next section) to make sure the correct ACLs are set on it.

"Quirks" of Email under LIONS

As we've mentioned before, we've moved the MH style mailboxes for LIONS because of the limitations of OpenAFS. OpenAFS uses large disk caches for efficiency. This is helpful when performing lots of reads, since most of the time the next block of data your program is reading will be in the cache, but this also causes problems for email delivery programs, since the mailbox has to be buffered back out to the OpenAFS file server.

In order for OpenAFS to allow mail delivery, the mail server needs special access to write to your inbox. OpenAFS uses access control lists, or ACLs, to control access to files within it's realm. ACLs are set on your home directory and Mail file to give the mailserver the special access it needs to deliver new e-mail into your account. The ACLs are set up correctly by default, but if altered, the mailserver may be prevented from delivering e-mail properly. As with the "out of disk quota" situation, the sender will receive a message stating that your mailbox could not be accessed and the message will bounce.

As you have full control over your mailbox, you or a program you run can possibly destroy the special access needed for the mailserver to continue delivering e-mail to you. This is mitigated somewhat by using an MH mailbox, since each mail message is delivered as a separate file in your inbox.

When the extended ACLs present on your inbox are damaged, you can reapply the correct permissions by issuing the following command:

chk_mailbox

The chk_mailbox command issues the commands that are necessary to correct the ACL settings on your inbox and .forward files.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What is MH mailbox format?

A. From the MH FAQ:

Unlike most mail agents, MH keeps each message in a separate file. The filename is the message number. To rearrange the messages, MH just changes the filenames. MH can use standard Unix file system operations such as removing, copying and linking messages. The message files are grouped into one or more folders, which are actually Unix directories.

Q. Whenever I exit Pine/IMAP client and reenter, all of the messages that I've marked as "read" are marked as "new" again. What's up?

A. Both Pine and the IMAP server have a limited support for the MH mailbox format. (From what we can tell, the authors of Pine and the IMAP server do not feel that the MH format is worth much support except what is barely needed to make the programs function.) If you wish full support of the MH folder format, we recommend you choose from the following available MH email clients, all of which are available under LIONS: Exmh, xmh, or mh-e.

Q. When I connect to the LIONS2 IMAP server using Outlook, I get the following message:

The server you are connected to is using a security certificate that could not be verified. A certificate chain processed, but terminated in a root certificate which is not trusted by the trust provider. Do you want to continue using this server?

A. At the present time, we're using a certificate signed by ODU LIONS2 Certificate Authority. Unfortunately, because it is signed by us and not by a known certificate authority, Outlook doesn't know about it, and is warning you about it. (Other packages, such as Mozilla Thunderbird, are able to show you the certificate for verification, but it's a shame that Outlook doesn't feel that you need to know those details.) Just press the 'Yes' button and continue.

Q. I'm running Thunderbird or Icedove, and I don't see any of the inboxes you describe. How do I see them?

A. Under the 'Folders' window pane, right click on the 'Inbox' folder. In the pop-up menu which appears, click 'Subscribe'. You should then see a list of folders in your account. Look for one labeled '#mh' and click the plus sign to the left of it. There, you will see an 'inbox' folder. Click the check box to the right of 'inbox' and click 'OK'. Your LIONS2 inbox is located as #mh/inbox.

Q. I'm running Eudora, and I don't see any of the inboxes you describe. How do I see them?

A. First, make sure your options/preferences are set correctly as described above (Server Type, Server Host, etc). Once you issue "Check Mail", you'll see the following text box:

The server's SSL certificate was rejected for the following reasons: Certificate Error: Chain Not Trusted Do you want to trust this certificate in future sessions?

Make sure the following lines are located in the certificate:

        Issuer: C=US, ST=Virginia, L=Norfolk, O=Old Dominion University, OU=Office of Computing and Communications Services, CN=islamorada.lions.odu.edu/emailAddress=unixhelp@odu.edu

        Subject: C=US, ST=Virginia, L=Norfolk, O=Old Dominion University, OU=Office of Computing and Communications Services, CN=imap.lions2.odu.edu/emailAddress=unixhelp@odu.edu

Then select "Yes".

For the Windows Client:

Select "Tools", then "Options", and on the "Incoming Mail" category, make sure that "IMAP Mailbox Location Prefix" is set to #mh.

Once you've done this, you will need to do the following:

1. Click on the "File" menu, then select "Check Mail". A list of folders under "<Dominant>" will appear in the left pane.
2. Click on "<Dominant>". You should now see all of the folders (including an "Inbox" and "inbox" folder) in your "Mail" directory.
3. Select the "inbox" folder (the one with the lower case "i"). That is where your LIONS2 mail is located.

For the Macintosh Client:

First, you need to make sure the "Esoteric Settings" plugin is installed. See the following URL for details:

http://eudora.com/techsupport/kb/2115hq.html#esoteric

Once this is done, you will need to copy and paste the following into any new message and double click it (it will highlight as a URL). See the X-Eudora-Settings FAQ for more information.

<x-eudora-setting:12301=#mh>

Eudora will look for the proper inbox.

Once you've done this, you may need to also do the following:

1. Click on the "Mailbox" menu
2. Under the "<Dominant>" option, select "Mail".
3. This should open up a file browser. Select the "Mail" folder, and under that, select the "inbox" folder - your mail is located there.
4. Highlight the "inbox" folder and through the folder connection icon activate the options "Refresh Mailbox List" and/or "Resynchronize Mailbox".

Q. How do I convert (split) an mbox-style file folder into an MH folder?

A. Using Procmail's 'formail' command with the MH 'rcvstore' command may be used to do this. The '-ds' option to 'formail' will split up the mbox folder into separate messages, calling 'rcvstore' to process each one individually and place them into your LIONS2 inbox:

$ cat mbox.folder | formail -ds /usr/pubsw/libexec/nmh/rcvstore +inbox

Q. I'm running a Linux/BSD box and I want to use Fetchmail to grab my LIONS2 email and place it locally. How do I do this?

A. The following Fetchmail script is known to work well. Place the text below into a file called $HOME/.fetchmailrc and set it's permissions to 600. You will need to replace the string 'localid' with your local user name on your box and 'lionx2id' and 'lions2pswd' with the user id and password of your LIONS2 account. Once created, you can either issue the 'fetchmail' command by hand or run it as a daemon. (Please see the 'fetchmail' manual page for more details.)

set postmaster "localid"
set bouncemail
set no spambounce
set properties ""
poll imap.lions2.odu.edu with proto IMAP
       user 'lions2id' there with password 'lions2pswd' is 'localid' here options ssl
    folder "#mhinbox"

Please note that as of Fetchmail 6.3.4, it no longer accepts self-signed certificates, so we remade the certificate as signed by the LIONS2 Certificate Authority, whose public certificate is located here:

http://www.lions.odu.edu/lions2-ca.pem

Once you have downloaded this file, place it in your OpenSSL 'certs' directory (usually this is either /usr/ssl/certs or /usr/share/ssl/certs, depending upon your distribution). Once you've done this, cd into the above directory and issue the following command as root:

# ln -s lions2-ca.pem `openssl x509 -noout -hash < lions2-ca.pem `.0