CS Lab: Choosing and Configuring Your Mail Client

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This page offers information about choosing a mail client, and some tips on configuring your client. Be sure to read the Email Basics.

No email client will be permitted to use cleartext passwords on the network. All of the clients below can be configured to run securely.

1. Recommendations.

First, we have three specific recommendations:

• Always store your mail on the mail server, as opposed to downloading it off the server and onto your local machine. (This way, the mail client just gets a copy of each message as you read it, and the original stays on the server, where it is backed up, and where you can access it from more than one location.)
• Be sure your password is transmitted in encrypted form, not in cleartext from your mail client to the server.
• Use the IMAP protocol. POP3 is also ok, but do NOT use the older POP or POP2 protocols, since they do not allow mail to be kept on the server.

2. Choose a mail client.

Your choice of which mail client to use is mostly based on subjective criteria:  features and "look & feel", and partly on which platform you are using. Supported mail clients include:

Windows:

• Thunderbird   (nice, because it has a built-in Bayesian spam filter)
• PC-Alpine
• Outlook (IMAP)

Unix:

• Thunderbird   (nice, because it has a built-in Bayesian spam filter)
• Alpine

3. Configure your mail client.

Thunderbird/Mozilla

Frighteningly detailed information about configuring Thunderbird (and the Mozilla email client) is found here. (To configure the news reader, go here.)

Alpine

The Alpine client installed on CSE Unix machines is automatically configured to use your logical maildrop address and to use password encryption, so usually no further configuration is required. To learn about using Alpine, check out the Alpine Page.

PC-Alpine

You can install the PC-Alpine client on your PC (in the Allen Center or at home). Then use the configuration information below with details on configuring PC-Pine for UW Email as your guide.

Outlook

Detailed information about configuring Outlook, and the related steps for getting started with Outlook can be found here.

4. Additional configuration details...

If you use the pre-installed Alpine on CSE Unix machines, no further configuration is needed. For all other mail clients (including PC-Alpine), there are a few configuration details you'll need to attend to:

• Mail Server
  When configuring other mail clients you will need the name of a mail server or IMAP server. We highly recommend that you use your logical maildrop address, which is: <username>.mail.cs.washington.edu

  To verify that you have a logical maildrop address, click here. (Logical maildrop addresses provides a level of indirection making it relatively easy to move your physical maildrop for load balancing, etc.) If you don't have a logical maildrop address, and want to use a network mail client to read your mail, you should request a logical maildrop address.

• Password Encryption
  Your mail server requires a password each time you connect to it. You need to supply the password only once, when you first configure your mail client. We STRONGLY urge you to use a mail client that supports password encryption. Otherwise, you are sending your password across the net in CLEARTEXT.

  Mail clients that support password encryption include Alpine, PC-Alpine and Outlook.

• SMTP Server
  Some clients also require an SMTP server, which handles your outgoing mail. If you are working on a machine in the Allen Center, you can use your logical maildrop as the SMTP server. You can also use mailhost.cs.washington.edu

  If you are reading mail from outside the CSE domain (e.g., via an ISP account or a C&C dial-up line), you must use the ISP's SMTP server; mail cannot be relayed from an external domain through CSE to yet another external domain without an authentication. If you are using C&C dialup lines, you will need to use: smtp.washington.edu as your SMTP server. If your mail client can use TLS or STARTTLS with SMTP (be aware that some Outlook versions have this feature poorly implemented and may not work correctly), you can also use your logical maildrop or mailhost.cs.washington.edu as your SMTP server via "submission port" (587) to send mail to non-cs.washington.edu domain. Your password will be required for this connection. There are also general security considerations related to remote access; see here for details.

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