From Socs Info Wiki
This document describes how to use the mail system at SOCS.
There are different methods for accessing the mail system from the labs, and from home. Also, there are a number of operations such as changing passwords, and mail forwarding that users of the system should be aware of.
Webmail Problems with certain browsers (eg. Safari)
Safari users might not be able to login to the standard webmail interface. If you are having problems logging in please use:
http://mail.cs.mcgill.ca/squirrelmail
It is a slightly older interface, with a simpler search feature, but otherwise all the other features should be there.
Mail Etiquette
Please visit the SOCS Mail page for information.
How to Read Mail
We use a self Signed certificate on our mail server. To confirm this check the fingerprint against the following file on our cs servers:
cat /usr/socs/mail-sha1-fingerprint
In all cases you must know your current SOCS password in order to be able to read mail.
If you don't know your SOCS mail password, you will have to contact the SOCS Help Desk.
In general, the only information you need to know to configure any mail client (thunderbird, pine, eudora, the bar, outlook, outlook express, etc.) are the following:
For IMAP access
- Incomming Mail Server: mail.cs.mcgill.ca
- Incomming Mail Server Type: IMAP
- Incomming Mail Server Option: Use Secure IMAP Connection of type SSL
- Make sure to NOT check Use secure authentication
- Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server:
mail.cs.mcgill.ca [Use port 465, SSL, username, CS account password] - Your identity (name, email address, username, CS account password).
For POP access
- Incomming Mail Server: mail.cs.mcgill.ca
- Incomming Mail Server Type: POP
- Incomming Mail Server Option: Use Secure Connection of type SSL
- Make sure to NOT check Use secure authentication
- Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server:
mail.cs.mcgill.ca [Use port 465, SSL, username, CS account password] - Alternatively: Outgoing Mail (SMTP Server:
mail.cs.mcgill.ca [Use port 587, TLS, username, CS account password] - Your identity (name, email address, username, CS account password).
Please bear in mind that with POP, your mail is going to be downloaded to your computer. There are no backups if you use POP. Furthermore, with POP only your INBOX is visible, if you have folders on webmail, then you'll have to merge them with your INBOX.
How to use Webmail with Internet Explorer 7
Internet Explorer 7 has some new anti-phishing features that unfortunately object fairly severely to self-signed certificates (which is what we use on our webmail server).
To work around this
- Go to http://webmail.cs.mcgill.ca
- Click on "Continue to this website (not recommended)."
- Click on the "Certificate Error" button to the right of the address bar at the top of the screen.
- Click "View certificates".
- Click on the "Install Certificate..." button near the bottom of the "Certificate" window.
- Click the "Next" button twice leaving all options at the defaults.
- Click on "Finish", and answer "Yes" to the "Security Warning" window that pops up.
Internet Explorer should no longer complain when you try to access webmail.
How To Change Mail Password
Your SOCS mail password is the same as your current SOCS login password.
If you don't know your SOCS login password, you will have to contact the SOCS Help Desk.
The passwd program on mimi will change your SOCS mail password and your SOCS login password.
To Change your password run the command passwd:
[mimi][~] passwd
How To Forward Mail
You must know your SOCS mail password in order to be able to forward mail.
If you don't know your SOCS mail password, you will have to contact the SOCS Help Desk.
To START forwarding:
- Log on to : http://mail.cs.mcgill.ca
- Click on : Filters link at the top of the web page.
- Click on : [Add a New Rule] Button
- Select : All Messages
- Click on : [Move on to step 2 >>] Button
- Scroll to : Action Section
- Select : Redirect to the following email address
- Type in : "address@of.your.choosing"
- Scroll Down to : Additional Actions
- Select : STOP If this rule matches, do not check any rules after it
- Click on : [Move on to step 4 >>] Button
- Read over your rule and make sure that you have no typos
- Click on : [Finished] Button
- Click on : Arrow keys to make sure that this rule is run first
- Click on : [Save Changes] Button
A Note on SPAM:
The above setup will not keep any mail here at CS but will redirect it to the address that you specify. Therefore, spam mail will be "tagged" as spam but will also be forwarded to your specified address.
If you do not like this, then you can decide to delete any spam before the redirection takes place by following these instructions:
- Log on to : http://mail.cs.mcgill.ca
- Click on : Filters link at the top of the web page.
- Click on : [Edit Icon] button next to the default spam rule
- Scroll to : Action Section
- Select : Discard Silently
- Click on : [Apply Changes] Button
- Click on : Arrow keys to make sure that this rule is run first
- Click on : [Save Changes] Button
To STOP forwarding:
- Log on to : http://mail.cs.mcgill.ca
- Click on : Filters link at the top of the web page.
- Select : rule you want to delete
- Click on : [Delete Selected] button
- Click on : [Save Changes] Button
How To Setup Vacation Mail
You must know your SOCS mail password in order to be able to send vacation mail.
If you don't know your SOCS mail password, you will have to contact the SOCS Help Desk.
To START vacation mail:
- Log on to : http://mail.cs.mcgill.ca
- Click on : Filters link at the top of the web page.
- Click on : [Add a New Rule] Button
- Select : All Messages
- Click on : [Move on to step 2 >>] Button
- Scroll to : Action Section
- Select : "Vacation"
- Your default email address should already be there
- Add a comma separated list of any other e-mail addresses that you use for yourself
- The default number of days that people are re-informed of your vacation status is 7
- If you need, change the value to one of your liking
- Type in : the message you want people to see when informed of your vacation
- Scroll Down to : Additional Actions
- Select : STOP If this rule matches, do not check any rules after it
- Click on : [Move on to step 4 >>] Button
- Read over your rule and make sure that you have no typos
- Click on : [Finished] Button
- Click on : Arrow keys to decide when you want this rule to be run
- You probably want it to be run after the spam rule so that spammers are not informed of your vacation status
- Click on : [Save Changes] Button
To STOP vacation mail:
- Log on to : http://mail.cs.mcgill.ca
- Click on : Filters link at the top of the web page.
- Select vacation rule you want to delete
- Click on : [Delete Selected] button
- Click on : [Save Changes] Button
How To Check Mail Quota
You must know your current SOCS mail password in order to be able to check your mail quota and usage.
If you don't know your SOCS mail password, you will have to contact the SOCS Help Desk.
The webmail system displays your mail quota when you login. Other methods will be available soon.
If you need more quota, please contact the SOCS Help Desk.
How To Delete Mail When Over Quota
You must know your current SOCS mail password in order to be able to delete your extra mail.
If you don't know your SOCS mail password, you will have to contact the SOCS Help Desk.
To DELETE mail without it going to the Trash Folder:
- Log on to : http://mail.cs.mcgill.ca
- Click on : Options link at the top of the web page.
- Click on : Folder Preferences link.
- Scroll to : Special Folder Options
- Click on : "INBOX.Trash"
- Select : [Do Not Use Trash]
- Click on : [Submit] Button at the bottom of the web page.
- You will now be able to delete messages without the quota warning.
- Once you have freed enough space you may want to re-enable the Trash Folder settings.
If you need more quota, please contact the SOCS Help Desk.
Where is the spam?
So as not to delete your personal mail, any mail that is tagged as spam is placed in: INBOX.spam
You can access it on the following systems:
- Webmail: Subscribe to it.
- Log on to : http://mail.cs.mcgill.ca
- Click on : Folders link at the top of the page
- Scroll down to : the Section labeled : Unsubscribe/Subscribe
- Select : INBOX.spam
- Click on : the [Subscribe] Button
- Scroll to : the top of the page
- A Message : Subscribed successfully! : Should be displayed
- Click on : refresh folder list link
- The spam folder should now be seen in the column on the left
- pine: It will be listed under your mailserver folders
- mutt: It will be listed under your folders
- other: Most email clients offer you a way to subscribe to your IMAP folders To know how the mail gets placed in this folder see: filtering
How to tune individual spam settings
To customize your spam settings, connect to http://mail.cs.mcgill.ca
- Log on to : http://mail.cs.mcgill.ca
- Click on : Options link at the top of the page
- Click on : Spam Filter Configration link
- Edit your personal Address List
- Change any other General entry that you need.
- Scroll down to : the bottom of the page
- Click on : the [Update Settings] Button
- Click on : your INBOX to return to your INBOX
How to help train our spam system
Add any untagged spam to the user.globalspam folder
- Log on to : http://mail.cs.mcgill.ca
- Click on : Folders link at the top of the page
- In the Unsubscribe/Subscribe secction select user.globalspam
- Click on: Subscribe
- Click on: refresh folder list at the top of the page
- Move any untagged spam to this folder
How to filter incoming mail
Using the webmail system click on the Filters link.
- Log on to : http://mail.cs.mcgill.ca
- Click on : Filters link at the top of the page
- Click on : [Add a New Rule] Button
- Select : Header Match : as the rule type
- Click on : [Move on to step 2 >>] Button
- Select the condition: Either AND or OR
- Select the header(s) you want to match using the pull down menus
- Type in : "what you are matching"
- Click on : the [Move on to step 3 >>] Button
- In the Action section decide what action you want taken
- We will use the move action as an example here
- Select : Move message into : as the action
- Select : a new folder, named
- Type in : "new folder name"
- Leave : created as a subfolder of INBOX : as the default unless you want to have a sub sub folder
- Scroll Down to : Additional Actions
- Select : STOP If this rule matches, do not check any rules after it
- Click on : [Move on to step 4 >>] Button
- Read over your rule and make sure that you have no typos
- Click on : [Finished] Button
- Click on : Arrow keys to make sure that this rule is run in the order that you think it should be
- Click on : [Save Changes] Button
These rules are server side and are used to filter your incoming mail into specific folders or to reply with whatever message you have setup.
Using Fetchmail
Using this method is not secure especially if you are saving your password in a file.
- If you are using fetchmail with a .forward file, the only changes are:
- Your password is now your CS password
- Your .forward will be moved to .forward_personal
- Add authenticate password to your config file
- Run as: fetchmail --ssl
- Please only run fetchmail off our ftp server (wase)
- For those who needed to use this for course accounts there is another option now available which entails the use of shared mailboxes
- For those who used .forward to redirect their mail to procmail, this will no longer be necessary to do on wase,
as the mail will be delivered with procmail. So you only need to use fetchmail with a .procmailrc file.
See the procmail section below.
Using Procmail
Please note that procmail use will only be supported on the ftp server (wase).
You no longer need to have a .forward file to use procmail. When using fetchmail to download your mail, it will be delivered using procmail.
Currently the better option to filter your mail is with the Filters link on our webmail system.
See the filtering section for more info.
Mutt and Pine config options
The following are ONLY needed by those who need to configure their own mutt and pine sessions.
The following should be set in your .muttrc file.
- set imap_authenticators="login"
- set folder={username@mail.cs.mcgill.ca/ssl}INBOX.
- set spoolfile={username@mail.cs.mcgill.ca/ssl}INBOX
- set hostname="cs.mcgill.ca"
- set record=+Sent
- set postponed=+Drafts
- set certificate_file=~/mail-certificates
The following should be set in your .pinerc file.
- user-domain=cs.mcgill.ca
- smtp-server=mail.cs.mcgill.ca/novalidate-cert
- inbox-path={mail.cs.mcgill.ca/ssl/novalidate-cert}inbox
- folder-collections=local mail/[],mailserver {mail.cs.mcgill.ca/ssl/novalidate-cert}[inbox.*]
- disable-these-authenticators=CRAM-MD5
Info for External or Firewalled users
When outside of CS or behind the CS firewall use mail.cs.mcgill.ca [Use port 465, SSL, username, CS account password]as the outgoing (SMTP) mail server.
Mailing Lists
Please see the Mailing Lists page for information.
Categories: HowTo | Email