BSOE Computing Support

E-Mail Services

Accessing Your E-Mail

Attention. BSOE is currently begining the migration to use BSOE Google Apps for Education as the email service for Engineering. This page will be updated to reflect the settings for BSOE Google Mail access.

 

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 Google Apps for Education for our e-mail service.  This e-mail service 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 Mutt to use BSOE google mail add the following to your .muttrc:

set imap_user = "Your User Name"@soe.ucsc.edu
set spoolfile = imaps://imap.gmail.com/INBOX
set folder = imaps://imap.gmail.com/
set record="imaps://imap.gmail.com/[Gmail]/Sent Mail"
set postponed="imaps://imap.gmail.com/[Gmail]/Drafts"

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

For BSOE Google Mail:

  • IMAP Server Name: imap.gmail.com
    IMAP User Name: Your BSOE User Name@soe.ucsc.edu
    IMAP Password: Your BSOE Password
  • SMTP Server Name: smtp.gmail.com
    SMTP User Name: Your BSOE User Name@soe.ucsc.edu
    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 preferences list (where the folder list normally is).
  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.

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.