Email Options
This information is for Linux users, but may also be relevant
to windows users.
Email can be sent using the old UNIX mail method. Open a terminal
window, and enter "mail user@host" and return. You will be asked to specify
a subject header, then you can enter your message. To end your message,
type a line with just a period on it (then return). You will
then be allowed to enter a cc address.
You cannot access your email by mail, as used to be the case.
Your mail messages are held in two mail buffers. The most recent mail
is held in a temporary buffer on the server. This is downloaded
into a file called mbox in your home directory whenever
you access your email via the methods described below.
You can access previously downloaded email by viewing mbox with a text
editor of your choice, but you won't see mail still in the server mail
buffer (i.e., by looking at mbox you may not see messages that
came after mbox was last updated).
You can access your email using a web browser. Just point your browser
at "http://www.math.unl.edu/mail". You will have to enter your
username and password. It is possible that your password
isn't encrypted, so this may entail some security risk if you use
this method offsite. When
you are done doing your email, be sure to sign out by clicking the sign
out button (otherwise subsequent users can access your email
by using the back button on the browser).
You can also ssh to your home account and then use pine, say.
This is more secure, but still not completely secure
if you're not using your own computer. (Computers can
be set up to record keystrokes, for example.)
Finally, many browsers have email functions built-in. (This is different from
the browser based email described above, where what you are doing is
using a browser to interact with the email server, and all of the functionality
is at the server, with the browser just being used to view the results.)
You will have to configure your browser's email program correctly
to get it to work. Use the IMAP setting (not POP), with incoming mail server
set to mathstat.unl.edu . You can also set the outgoing mail server to
mathstat.unl.edu, but email from offsite is not accepted, so you won't be
able to send mail if you're not located in the Department. If you
have access to another mail server that does send mail from offsite,
you can set that to be your outgoing mail server.