Email Transition Frequently Asked Questions.
by Hanz Makmur

    Last Modified: June 12, 2006

  1. Q. Who is eligible to create an account  on the new CS Central Mail Server known as dragon.rutgers.edu?
    A. Any CS Faculty/CS Staff/ CS Researchers/ Current CS Grad Students/ Current Under Grad majoring in Computer Science

  2. Q. Do I have to create a mail account on this new Central Mail Server ?
    A. Yes! As of Aug 1, 2006, current CS machines where you are reading your mail from will no longer accept incoming email. If you don't create a new account on the Central Mail Server, you will stop getting new mail.

  3. Q. How do I create an account on this new Central Mail Server ?
    A. To create an account on this server, you need to go to http://dragon.rutgers.edu and click the MakeAccount button.

  4. Q. I tried to create an account on Dragon at: https://dragon.rutgers.edu/cgi-bin/makeaccount.pl but it failed with: Error: User is not a known member of the Computer Science Department What should I do?
    A. You get this message when you are not a CS student, CS faculty, CS staff or do not have a faculty or staff member sponsor. To obtain a faculty, technical staff, or administrative staff sponsor, please contact the potential sponsor directly.

  5. Q. What will be my email address after I create an account on the new Central Mail Server ?
    A. Your email address will be your_username@cs.rutgers.edu. Please make sure you notify your correspondence about the change of address if you were not using this address previously. Your username will be the same as your current unix username.

  6. Q. I imagine that user@cs is an alias for user@dragon. Can I give out any of them?
    A.Yes but we prefer you tell others that your email address is: user@cs.rutgers.edu
    We prefer user uses generic names like cs.rutgers.edu instead of dragon.rutgers.edu

  7. Q. What happen to emails sent to user@paul, user@research, user@remus, user@aramis, user@cereal after August 1, 2006 ?
    A. Email arriving for user@{paul,research,remus,aramis,cereal}.rutgers.edu will be forwarded to an existing dragon account and a notice will be delivered to the sender with a note that the old email address is expiring. If the dragon account has not been created, the mail will bounced. Please note that we will monitor the frequency and number of forward operations performed. In the even that the forward are affecting the mail server operation due to excessive spams and/or virus this service will be terminated without prior notice. We will be expiring these old address on Aug 1, 2007

  8. Q. I use my cs.rutgers.edu account for 'professional'  and paul account for 'personal' purposes -  my paul accout receives way too much spam. How would I know mail sent to cs and to paul after August 1, 2006?
    A. The forwarded message will look like as if it comes for user@paul. You can filter this mail using account email Rules. Note: You get too much spam at paul.rutgers.edu because paul's email never gets checked for spam and virus. This will be different as of Aug 1, 2006.

  9. Q. Will I still be able to read my old and new mail using RMAIL, MAIL  or  MM ?
    A. The new mail server does not allow direct file access that RMAIL, MAIL or MM support. Thus we recommend that you switch to a more modern mail client like Mozilla Thunderbird, Outlook, Outlook Express or Apple Mail or use the webmail. (See below.)

  10. Q. I really like my RMAIL or MM and I don't want to change.  How do I get the new account to work with RMAIL or MM ?
    A. If you insist on using these programs,  we have provided a documentation that will let you continue using these 20 year old programs. Please See Reading CS Email using Legacy Mail Client

  11. Q. Will I be able to use Pine to read mail on the new Central Mail Server ?
    A. Yes. Pine 4.33 and higher supports the standard Secure IMAP protocol and you SHOULD configure your settings on Pine to read mail using this new protocol. Edit your .pinerc file and modify the following fields as follow:
        user-domain=cs.rutgers.edu
    smtp-server=dragon.rutgers.edu/ssl
    inbox-path={dragon.rutgers.edu/ssl}INBOX
    folder-collections=local mail/[], dragon {dragon.rutgers.edu/ssl}[]
    For more info about Pine see: Pine Information Center.

  12. Q. Can I read my mail using a browser?
    A. Yes. One of the features of this new mail system is Webmail. Simply point your browser to: http://dragon.rutgers.edu.

  13. Q. Can I use any machine at CS and run pine, webmail and thunderbird or do I need to choose only one machine?
    A. You can choose to use either one or all at once. It does not matter as long as an IMAP based client is used.

  14. Q. If I want to use pine, should I use it on paul, research, or where?
    A. It does not matter where you use a mail client from and you can have multiple instances of pine running at the same time.

  15. Q. Can I still use pine to access my (old) mail folders after August 2006?
    A. Yes, as long as you access them the way you access them currently.

  16. Q. I'm not familiar with IMAP, if I use pine anywhere and configure it to run with IMAP, where will I keep my emails, folders, etc.?
    A. IMAP based mail server stores all users mail/folders centrally in the server. During load, what you see from a client is just headers of the email.  When client asks it to open a specific folder, only header list are sent. When a specific email is asked to be opened, only that specific email is sent to the imap client. This means all your email reside in the server. This allows you to access it from multiple places/clients at the same time and still see the same email.

  17. Q. What should I expect after creating an account on this new Central Mail Server ?
    A. You should read What to expect? document to familiarize yourself with the new mail server.

  18. Q. How much space do I get on this new CS Central Mail Server?
    http://please.rutgers.edu/show/emailtransition.html A. You will get at least 1 Gigabyte of disk space. When you reach 80% and 85% of your quota, a warning email will sent to you to remind you that you are running low in disk space. This quota is NOT related to your other disk quota in any of CS systems.

  19. Q. What is that Spam folder in my account ?
    A. The spam folder in your account was created automatically when you created your mail account. Every mail you received in this new server is analyzed and given a score by our spam checker.  When a mail gets a score of 5 or more, it is placed inside this spam folder. Users should check this spam folder occasionally for false positives.

  20. Q. Can you adjust the spam score to a different number ?
    A. Unfortunately because the way we setup our mail system,  this is not possible at this time.

  21. Q.  How do I make sure  mail from xxx@yyy.com never gets filed spam?
    A.  If for some reasons you would like to prevent email from certain address to be filled in the spam folder, you can create an account rule inside the mail server to prevent the automatic filling to the spam folder. The new rule should be placed in a higher priority than the spam filter rule. Please see: Setting Up Spamfilter on Dragon for an example of how to create a rule.

  22. Q. Can I login to dragon.rutgers.edu and get a shell?
    A. No. Access to dragon.rutgers.edu is limited to secure POP, IMAP, WWW protocol only.

  23. Q. I want to move my old mail to the CS Central Mail Server. How do I do that ?
    A. Moving mail from the older system to the new modern mail system is simple. Please see: Please see: Mail Migration to CS Central Mail Server for more info.

  24. Q. I imagine I can migrate my mail folders in stages (a few folders now, some others later), is it so?
    A. Yes you can move them in stages. Simply put the one you would like to migrate into the Mailbox folder and only those mail inside the mailbox will be migrated to dragon. Remember migrated mail does not get deleted from the source. The migration software will simply mirror what you have to the new location. Please see: Mail Migration to CS Central Mail Server for more info.

  25. Q. I am done with Rutgers and I want to move my CS mail to other mail server elsewhere. How do I do that ?
    A. Moving mail from the CS Central Mail System to the new  mail system elsewhere is simple. Please see: Mail Extraction From The CS Central Mail Server

  26. Q. Can I still send email from the unix machines like paul, remus, research etc?
    A. Yes. You can still send email out using whatever program you prefer but you won't get a reply on that machine, it will go to dragon instead. All email sent out will have the FROM header modified to reflect: your_username@cs.rutgers.edu

  27. Q. Can I import my current addressbook into dragon.rutgers.edu webmail addressbook ?
    A. Importing an addressbook from previous mail system is easy *IF* your current addressbook is already in a vCard format. 
    Follow these steps to import vCard format data.
    - Using the web interface, you need to create a Contacts folder. 
    - Once created, click on the Contact folder, then click on Folder Management.
    - Under this Folder Management window, you will be able to import or export vCard contacts data.
    For more info see: http://dragon.rutgers.edu/Guide/WebContacts.html#Settings

  28. Q. Could I use Rutgers University Central LDAP as my directory for my Webmail interface?
    A. Yes. Under webmail interface, click Settings then click on Contacts. 
    Under the Directory AddressBooks section,  add: Rutgers for name and top for Search Base and click update. Once this is done, you will be able to find out email address of any one in Rutgers and Dragon Directory when sending email.

  29. Q. How do I forward my dragon account's e-mail to another account?
     A. Log into your dragon account through the browser and click on the Rules Tab. Scroll to the bottom and check the box "Redirect All Mail to:" and  in the textbox below type the account you want it to be forwarded to.

  30. Q. I am going on a vacation and would like to setup a vacation message for my mail. How ?
    A. Vacation message can be setup via the webmail interface. Login to dragon via a web browser and click on the Rules Tab. Enable the Vacation Message check box, put your vacation message in the box, clik on clear 'Replied Addresses' List button and click on the Update button to activate your new settings.

  31. Q. I don't like the look of the webmail interface. Is there a better interface ?
    A. Yes. There are many other interfaces (called: skins or layouts) that you can choose from. All of these are described in the What to expect? section. Click on the Settings panel of your webmail client and select a new layout.

  32. Q. I use the webmail interface to read my mail. When I opened an enclosure, I selected Save when asked. Where was it saved to?
    A. Any enclosures saved when using the web interface is stored in the default Download Folder of your browser. This folder is normally default to your Desktop. On a Linux box this means: ~your_username/Desktop. To change this setting, look in your browser Download setting.

  33. Q. The transition website says that Mail to addresses other than user@cs.rutgers.edu will stop working. My desktop name is luckystar.rutgers.edu and currently I am using email address user@luckystar.rutgers.edu for all my email. Will my mail continue to work ?
    A. No. Email address like user@machines, although worked just fine, were never recommended to users. As part of the transition process, mail to user@machines other than the major servers (ie: aramis, paul, cereal, remus, research) will stop functioning weeks before Aug 1, 2006. Email to major servers will continue to work for a little while but you are suggested to use user@cs.rutgers.edu as your official CS email address. Email address to other than user@cs.rutgers.edu should not be used if you want to continue to receive email on CS Mail server.

  34. Q. I'm reading about backups of mail on dragon on http://please.rutgers.edu/show/dragon/expect.html along with instructions to migrate mail to dragon, and I'm trying to reconcile it with the current home directory archiving system. After the migration, will I get two archives: a dragon archive and a home directory archive?
    A. The archival CD will only contains material in your unix home directory. If you want mail included on this CD, please contact the person listed in the CD Archive site and ask about including your mail in that CD Archive.

  35. Q. I don't like dragon rules for mail processing. It seems limited and does not do certain things I like. Is there other alternative ?
    A.There is a free program called imapfilter that processes mail on an IMAP server without moving it to local storage. This program is unsupported. You will need to learn, install and run this program yourself on a separate machine.

  36. Q. I am seeing this "Beep! Beep!" message on mail to research, aramis, paul, cereal and remus. Could I turn it off ?
    A.Yes. You can opt-out of this warning message. See Opt-Out page for more details.