E-Mail Services

Accessing Your E-Mail

There are several ways you can connect to the BSOE e-mail server to read your e-mail. Using the web-based e-mail client and Thunderbird are the only two officially supported configurations.  If you can configured other client software to work with our mail servers, you may do so.  However, please be advised that BSOE techstaff cannot support software products other than web-based e-mail and Thunderbird.

Using The BSOE Web-Based E-Mail

The BSOE uses the Zimbra Collaboration Suite for our e-mail server.  This e-mail server has a very full-featured and very fast web-based e-mail client.  To use the web-based e-mail client, all you need to do is visit the web e-mail home page and log in using your BSOE login and password.

Using Thunderbird

Configuring Thunderbird is fairly easy.  Please see the Thunderbird Configuration Page for details.

Using Pine or Mutt

You can use Pine or Mutt to read your e-mail while logged in to the BSOE interactive Linux/UNIX servers.  Please keep in mind that these two e-mail readers are not officially supported by BSOE techstaff.

To configure Pine to use the Zimbra server, please add these three lines to your .pinerc file:

smtp-server=zimbra.soe.ucsc.edu
inbox-path={zimbra.soe.ucsc.edu/ssl/user=username/novalidate-cert}INBOX
folder-collections={zimbra.soe.ucsc.edu/ssl/user=username/novalidate-cert}[]

To configure Mutt to use the Zimbra server, please add this line to your  .muttrc file:

set spoolfile="imaps://username@zimbra.soe.ucsc.edu/INBOX"

Other E-Mail Clients

If you would like to configure an e-mail client other than Thunderbird, you can use the following configuration information:

• IMAP Server Name: zimbra.soe.ucsc.edu
  IMAP User Name: Your BSOE User Name
  IMAP Password: Your BSOE Password
• SMTP Server Name: zimbra.soe.ucsc.edu
  SMTP User Name: Your BSOE User Name
  SMTP Password: Your BSOE Password

SSL must be used to protect your mail transactions. Our outgoing mail server will not 'RELAY' your mail (that is, send mail addressed from you to someone outside the BSOE) unless your mail client supports "SMTP AUTH" and SSL.

If you are using Apple Mail on Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard), please set your e-mail client to send mail using port 465 - setting to "default ports" will cause timeout errors (even though "default ports" includes 465).

Our incoming IMAP server is compatible with both the IMAPS protocol (port 993) and the STARTTLS command (port 143).

Setting Up an Auto-Reply (Vacation) Message

If you will be away from your desk for an extended period of time, you can set an auto-reply message which will be automatically sent to anyone who sends you e-mail while you are away.  To set your auto-reply message, follow these steps:

1. Log in to the BSOE web-based e-mail client
2. Click "Preferences" in the top toolbar on the right.
3. Click "Mail" in the toolbar just below the blue toolbar.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and check the box that is labeled "Send auto-reply message".  Enter the message that you'd like sent to people that e-mail you while you are away.  You can also optionally set a start date and an end date for your auto-reply message.
5. Click "Save" in the blue toolbar at the top to activate your auto-reply message.

When you have returned to your desk, you can repeat the steps above except instead of checking the "Send auto-reply message" box, you should un-check it instead.

Forwarding Your BSOE E-Mail to Another Server

To forward your BSOE e-mail to another server, follow these steps:

1. Log in to the BSOE web-based e-mail client
2. Click "Preferences" in the top toolbar on the right.
3. Click "Mail" in the toolbar just below the blue toolbar.
4. Check the box that says "Forward a copy to" and then enter the address that you'd like your e-mail forwarded to in the box provided.  You can also check the "Don't keep a local copy of messages" box if you do not want to keep a copy of the e-mail on the BSOE server.
5. Click "Save" in the blue toolbar at the top to activate your e-mail forwarding.

Getting Help With Your BSOE E-Mail

If you are expericing a problem using the BSOE e-mail service, please open an IT Request ticket.