| 1.4. Fetching Unix E-Mail from Other Programs | ||
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1. Using Electronic Mail |  |
| 1.4. Fetching Unix E-Mail from Other Programs | ||
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1. Using Electronic Mail | |
You don't have to use any Unix program to retrieve your Unix account e-mail. Almost any email program can be configured to fetch mail from your Unix account.
The world of email is dominated by three communications standards:
a common standard for fetching email. People who use POP generally pull all their mail onto a local machine, storing saved messages on the local machine.
a standard for both fetching email and organizing it. People who use IMAP often keep all their mail on the remote mail server, including organizing it into folders. An advantage of an IMAP account is that your messages are available even if you move to a different machine. Disadvantages include longer waits (because even your saved messages must be retrieved from the remote server and possible space limitations required if many people are leaving all their email on the same remote mail server.
A standard for sending email
Typically, an email program will need to be configured with SMTP and either POP or IMAP if you want to both read and send mail from that program.
A complicating factor is that most Internet Service Providers block SMTP traffic that goes anywhere except to their own mail servers. This is pretty much a necessary restriction to prevent spammers from flooding the net from any arbitrary internet account. But it really makes it tricky to configure an email program on a laptop or other portable machine that may be moved from one ISP to another on a regular basis. That's one reason why email programs that run on remote machines and can be accessed via a web interface are becoming increasingly popular.
If, however, you use a program like Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Pegasus, or any of the other common email applications, you can configure it to fetch your CS Dept Unix email. The exact steps to be follwed will depend on the program and should be covered in the program's help files or documentation. But the general outline is
Configure the SMTP (to send email) according to the settings/instructions provided by your Internet Service Provider.
Add a POP account to our mail server
mail.cs.odu.edu with your Unix login name as the
Username and using your Unix password.
If your email is on the Dept's Exchange server, add
an Exchange or IMAP acccount to exchange.cs.odu.edu
instead.
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| 1.3. The Unix mail command | 2. Forwarding Addresses |