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CSE Mail

How to access mail at the PSU Department of Computer Science

The Department of CSE provides email service to CSE's Faculty, Graduate Students, and Staff only.  Undergraduate students continue to use their PSU Access Account for email service.


Quick Start Instructions

Depending upon your mail client you will want to make sure that your settings look like this:

 

IMAP server: mail.cse.psu.edu on SSL port (993)

POP server: mail.cse.psu.edu on SSL port (995)

SMTP server: mail.cse.psu.edu on port 25 using TLS

Webmail has moved to https://mail.cse.psu.edu/webmail

 

 

The new server will not look for ~/mail anymore, all of your mail will be stored on the server. Because of this change, Thunderbird users will need to do two things:
  1. Make sure your IMAP server directory setting is empty (Account Settings->Server Settings->Advanced in Thunderbird)
  2. Open your subscription dialog and subscribe to your folders (Right click on INBOX and choose Subscribe in Thunderbird)

Pine users will need to set edit the ~/.pinerc file to contain these lines:

 inbox-path = {mail.cse.psu.edu/ssl/user=}
 folder-collections=mail {mail.cse.psu.edu/ssl}[],spam {mail.cse.psu.edu/ssl}Spam.[]

Mutt users will need to edit the ~/.muttrc file to contain this line:

 set spoolfile=imaps://mail.cse.psu.edu/INBOX
 set folder=imaps://mail.cse.psu.edu/

 

The new server has drag and drop spam filtering. When you subscribe to your folders, be sure to choose Spam, Spam.ISspam, and Spam.NOTspam.

 

Any time spam hits your INBOX, simply drag and drop it to Spam->ISspam and it will be learned and moved to your Spam folder. If valid mail is sorted to your Spam folder, move it to Spam->NOTspam and it will be learned and moved to your INBOX. It can take up to an hour for mail to move out of the ISspam and NOTspam folders.

 

All mail is now stored on the mail server, and all of the mail in your home directory will be moved to the mail server in the conversion process. If you do any sort of filtering or scripting with your mail that specified ~/mail, they will need to be fixed to reflect the new path to your mail: /var/spool/mail/<username>. Folders under your new mail spool begin with a period. So if you had a folder at ~/mail/Proposals, it will become /var/spool/mail/<username>/.Proposals. Subfolders are allowed under this server so you could have an NSF folder beneath Proposals.

In-depth Information

Basic facts

We are using the Exim SMTP server, SpamAssassin spam scanner, and Vexira for anti-virus. We have an 800G mail spool for approximately 350 accounts, so there are no quotas set or planned for the near future.

Spam Handling

Exim provides us with the ability to scan mail prior to the close of the DATA command. If mail scores over 15 (very, very high) the connection is dropped. Mail is scanned a second time prior to final delivery using the individual settings for the user receiving the mail. This allows each user to customize their spam settings, whitelists, blacklists, and so forth. Look at ~/.spamassassin/user_prefs to get started. Documentation for spamassassin settings is at SpamAssassin's site

.

 

Spam is automatically sorted prior to delivery based on the X-Spam-Status header. All users default to have SpamAssassin's bayesian filtering turned on, which enables the drag and drop learning. Messages moved to ISspam or NOTspam are processed once an hour by SpamAssassin and relearned then moved to their appropriate spools. This training process is far from perfect and will not eliminate spam, but will seriously reduce it.

Vacation

Vacation no longer requires an entry in your .forward to work. If you create a file name .vacation.msg in your home directory and make sure everybody can read it using chmod, the delivery process will detect it and trigger a vacation reply. When you wish to turn vacation off, you simply move the .vacation.msg file to .vacation.msg.sav

Example:

 echo "I am currently on vacation. I will review your email when I return." > ~/.vacation.msg
 chmod go+r ~/.vacation.msg

Server-side filtering

Server-side filtering is very convenient if you read your mail on several different computers, since mail is filtered at delivery time. Contrast this with client-side filtering where filters are applied when mail is accessed, which means that your mail will not necessarily look the same from home as it does at work.

 

If you were previously doing server side filtering by having a | command in your .forward, this will be renamed in your home directory to .forward.prearlo. You will no longer need to use the .forward file to initiate procmail filtering. In the case of exim filtering, the .forward file contains the filtering rules.

 

Procmail filtering

is available by simply creating a .procmailrc with valid procmail recipes. If you were using procmail on the old server, it will be renamed to .procmailrc.prealrlo in your homedirectory and you will need to adjust your paths to reflect the location of the new mail spool. Here is an example

 

MAILDIR=/var/spool/mail/<username>/	# Note the trailing slash to indicate Maildir format
DEFAULT=$MAILDIR
LOCKFILE=$MAILDIR/.lockmail
:0	       # Anything from people at uunet
* ^From.*@uunet
.uunetbox/	# will go to $MAILDIR/.uunetbox NOTE THE LEADING DOT and TRAILING SLASH
:0		# Anything from Henry
* ^From.*henry
.henries/	# will go to $MAILDIR/.henries NOTE THE LEADING DOT and TRAILING SLASH

 

Exim Filtering is also available for server-side filtering. It's syntax is closer to the elm filter syntax that many people used on the old server. When a .forward file begins with the line "# Exim filter", it is interpreted by the mail server as a filter file and will allow sorting of mail at delivery time. Exim's specification for the filter syntax and available rules can be found at Exim's site

under the Documentation and FAQ link. Here is an example

 



# Exim filter
# if this filter generates an error, then deliver to original address as per usual
if error_message then finish endif
if $header_to: contains "sans.org"
    then
    save "/var/spool/mail/<username>/.SANS/" # Note the leading dot and trailing slash conforming to Maildir format
    finish
endif

if $header_from: contains "(jim@yahoo.com|bob@hotmail.com)" and
   $header_subject: contains "fish"
   then
   save "/var/spool/mail/<username>/.Fishing/"
   finish
endif


Plus Addressing




Plus addressing is another tool that can help filter mail.  If you subscribe to mailing list, 
like SANS for example, you could sign up with an email address of user+sans@cse.psu.edu.  All
incoming mail with this To address will be automatically filtered into a folder named sans.


 


            
        

    

        

    
        
            
        
    


    
        



    

    
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