Configuration of Mail Readers for the DESY Mail Servers in Zeuthen

General Remarks

The centrally installed mail clients on Linux/UNIX and Windows are usually preconfigured to use the correct settings. As users can override these settings and recommended settings may change it is a good advice to check whether your personal mail settings are in agreement with the values given below

Incoming Mail

Incoming mail is accessed using the

• IMAP protocol on the server

  imap.ifh.de on port 143 (or in conjunction with SSL port 993)

Authentication can be done using

• GSSAPI (Kerberos5) or by

  Plain authentication giving the (AFS) username and password

If password authentication is chosen,

• TLS (on port 143) or SSL (on port 993) must be used.

Outgoing Mail

All outgoing mail is sent using the

• SMTP protocol and one of the mail servers

  smtp.ifh.de (mail.ifh.de, mailz2.desy.de) or mail1.ifh.de (mailz.desy.de) port 25 must be used as all other outgoing mail traffic (e.g. sent from a notebook to a remote provider) is blocked. The use of smtp.ifh.de is preferred, as mail1.ifh.de is seen only from inside DESY and cannot be used to send mail from outside.

SMTP Authentication

• is not required but it can be used. It has to be used if mail from a remote host (e.g. from a notebook on a conference) needs to be sent via our mail server to a recipient outside DESY. This is called relaying and normally not allowed. Make sure to use the host name smtp.ifh.de and have the required certificates installed (described on the page Mail Server imap.ifh.de) The authentication can be done using

  GSSAPI (Kerberos5) or by

  Plain authentication giving the (AFS) username and password

If password authentication is chosen,

• TLS (on port 25) must be used. That uses SSL encryption.

Several sites do block outgoing traffic on port 25, therefore even when using authenticated SMTP sending mail using DESY Zeuthen mail servers would not be possible. Therefore we do provide two additional ports for sending mail: port 587 (submission) and port 465 (smtps). If port 25 is not working at external sites, you can give these ports a try.

Address Books

The centrally managed address books are using the LDAP protocol. To use it the name of a server and at least the search base have to be given. The following address books are useful (access is limited to DESY and to some High Energy Physics Institutes):

For backward compatibility the search base o=DESY Zeuthen on ldap.ifh.de is also a mirror of the official address book on ldap.desy.de.

Your Mail Address

In all mails the preferred email address Firstname.Lastname@desy.de should be used.

Please note that the default on some unmaintained systems is accountname@hostname.ifh.de which does not work. Mail clients allow you to override that default From: address to use the form given above.