Contents

  1. Important note
  2. Configuration of Mail Readers for the DESY Mail Servers in Zeuthen
    1. General Remarks
      1. Your Mail Address
      2. Incoming Mail
      3. Outgoing Mail
      4. SMTP Authentication
      5. Address Books
    2. Mail client specific information
      1. Alpine
        1. On Linux: (only if a self signed certificate has been reported)
        2. Configuring alpine by editing .pinerc
        3. Configuring alpine by using the configure screen of alpine
        4. Using alpine
      2. Thunderbird
      3. MacOSX Mail

Important note

The text below is obsolete for users. All accounts have an INBOX on the mail server in Hamburg.

Please see http://it.desy.de/services/e_mail/index_eng.html for more information and especially http://it.desy.de/services/e_mail/mail_programs_configurations/index_eng.html for the configuration of the email clients

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

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.

Incoming Mail

Incoming mail is accessed using the

Authentication can be done using

Outgoing Mail

All outgoing mail is sent to a mail server using the SMTP protocol. The

SMTP Authentication

You have to configure your mail client to use smtp.ifh.de as the outgoing mail server, use your (UNIX) username (and password) for authentication and use an encrypted connection (TLS, not SSL) on port 25. For thunderbird that is done on config screens, for pine/alpine the line 

 smtp-server=smtp.ifh.de/user=<accountname>

enables authenticated smtp.

If password authentication is chosen,

Several sites do block outgouig traffic on port 25 and sending mail using that port will fail. In this case sending mail using DESY Zeuthen mail servers would not be possible even when using authenticated SMTP. Therefore on smtp.ifh.de port 587 is open as well for mail submission (service "submission"). Older clients require the use of port 465 when using TLS with SMTP, this port can still be used on smtp.ifh.de but should be avoided for new configurations.

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):

server name

search base

remarks

ldap.desy.de

o=DESY,c=de

the official address book

ldap.ifh.de

o=DESY,c=de

mirror of ldap.desy.de

ldap.cern.ch

o=CERN,c=ch

the CERN address book

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.

You must use the default LDAP port 389, not SSL (port 636).

Mail client specific information

Alpine

On Linux: (only if a self signed certificate has been reported)

This step is usually not required

<!> Notice!
The following procedure needs to be followed only if you get warnings concerning certificates

Download the Telekom root CA and copy the file to

For the downloaded file the following command has to be issued (make sure you are in the certs directory), otherwise the certificate will not be found: 

ln -s downloaded_file `openssl x509 -noout -hash -in downloaded_file`.0

Configuring alpine by editing .pinerc

(this has been done already on DESY Zeuthen computers running SL5/6)

add or modify the following lines in .pinerc: 

inbox-path={
}inbox
# the folders on the server (mdbox format) and the local folders (mbox format)
folder-collections=Folders on imap.ifh.de {imap.ifh.de}[], mail/[]

# immediate startup (for non DESY computers required)
rsh-open-timeout=0

# the next lines are optional...
# pressing <TAB> at the last mail in the INBOX checks and opens the next INBOX
feature-list=...,tab-checks-recent

Configuring alpine by using the configure screen of alpine

The configure screen can be accessed from the main menu by selecting the setup menu and then select the "(C) Config" screen.

To set rsh-open-timeout=0 you may have to

Using alpine

To move or copy local folders or folders from another IMAP server to the imap.ifh.de server do the following

Thunderbird

(please do also have a look into the Vortrag im technischen Seminar if you have a german version of thunderbird)

<!> Notice!
In case of certificate warnings please consult the section on certificates above (under topic alpine)

Start thunderbird and create a new mail account:

When the server configuration has been automatically found, please change the email address to your officiall address firstname.lastname@desy.de . If you entered the desy.de address in the first place then proceed as follows:

Then in the newly created account change some settings:

To have thunderbird look in all folders for new mail:

Please disable the offline storage of emails in the AFS home directory:

MacOSX Mail

The configuration is similar to what is described under Thunderbird above. Kerberos authentication may work depending on the software installed. Make sure that

MailReaderConfiguration (last edited 2017-08-24 11:02:55 by SimoneWassberg)