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Most of the following information applies to the campus email system.
Delivery times for outgoing messages
Maximum single message size
Mail quotas
Valid sender address
Anti-SPAM configuration
Leave mail on server option
Vacation Rules
Pine or other IMAP mail clients
The mail server will immediately attempt to deliver all messages that it receives. If this initial delivery attempt fails for a non-fatal reason (e.g. cannot contact the destination site), the message is placed into a delivery queue. Once each hour, another attempt is made to deliver the messages in the queue.
If a message has remained in the delivery queue for 8 hours,
you will receive a message back from the mail server indicating that your message
has not yet been delivered. However, the server will continue trying until the
message has been in the queue for 4 days. When you
get the 8 hour non-delivery notice, you do not need to do anything. It is simply
a notification. If your message remains undeliverable for 4 days, it is returned
to you as non-deliverable. top 
A maximum single message size of 10 Mb has been set on the mail server. If you attempt to send an email message that is larger than this, it will be rejected. Note that this size applies to the entire size of your message, including all attachments.
This limit has been set because email is not the best way to exchange large files. Many other sites on the network also limit message size so even if you could send your message through our mail server, it will most likely be rejected by the destination site. And, when this happens, a copy of your message is returned to you, further wasting network and server resources.
One good alternative to sending large attachments is to make the attachment
available from a web page. Then, in your email message, send the URL to the
attachment. This makes better use of email services and allows the recipient
the chance to choose when to retrieve the attachment. top
A maximum of 50 Mb of email is allowed on the campus Falcon mail server per
student. Faculty and staff have an email quota of 300Mb currently. If a new
message to you will exceed this, the message is not delivered but rather
put into the delivery queue, where delivery will be attempted every hour for
up to 4 days. If you find you have exceeded your mail quota, delete messages.
Once you are again under quota, new mail will be delivered. top
The From: address on your email message must contain a valid domain name. The domain name is what is to the right of the @ symbol and in almost all cases it should be "uwrf.edu". If you haven't configured your mail software properly, you might find that you can no longer send new email messages. When you try to send a new message you will told that the message isn't acceptable because the domain name could not be found. You will need to re-configure your email software.
If you have properly configured your email software, or you are using SquirrelMail
where your address is automatically configured for you based on your account
name, it's unlikely you will see this error. top
SPAM (unwanted, unsolicited email messages, generally of an annoying nature) is a growing problem at all sites, including UW-River Falls. The newest version of the mail server software installed on the UW-RF mail system has many built-in features to help control SPAM and defeat those persons who send SPAM (the SPAMMERS).
Our server is configured in anti-SPAM mode so that we can do our part in being good net-citizens. In most cases, you shouldn't notice any difference, unless you dial-in or connect from another site and attempt to use our mail server as your SMTP server (in which case, you will need to re-configure your mail software to use the SMTP server of your host site). The main feature of the anti-SPAM mode is the prevention of mail relaying, which is how SPAMMERS generally send their messages.
The SPAMMER will find a site, let's call it site A, that allows relaying and send all their messages, often 1000's and 1000's of messages, through that site. The recipients of the messages look at where the SPAM message has come from and erroneously think that the SPAM originated at site A, when in fact it was from the SPAMMERS site. Those recipients of the SPAM that are less than happy with the SPAM message received then take out their frustrations on site A, often leading to a flood of incoming email trash directed at the postmaster address. To fight SPAM, many remote sites are now actively blocking all email from any site that allows their mail server to act as a relay.
Our mail servers now use anti-spamming software to mark spam sent to our campus.
To read more about the anti-spam techniques used at UW-River Falls, click
here. top
Eudora has an option called Leave mail on server. When set, this option stops Eudora from deleting your messages from the mail server after you have downloaded them to your work station. This is necessary if you check your email from more than one location, such as from your campus office and via dial-in from home. However, if you use this option, you must make sure that it is not set in all your Eudora configurations. One configuration must leave this option unset.
For example, it's common to set the Leave mail on server option on your home Eudora configuration. Then, you must not set this option on your office Eudora configuration. If you accidentally set this option in both places, all your mail messages remain on the mail server indefinitely, and, what's worse, you never see them after you've downloaded them in both locations. To you, it seems the messages have been removed from the server, but they really haven't. Please check this option in all your Eudora configurations and make sure it is set appropriately. If you need help, contact the IT Services HelpDesk.
If you find that you have Leave mail on server set in all your Eudora configurations, you might want to contact IT Services for help before you change this setting. Once you unset the Leave mail on server option, the next time you check your email, all messages previously retained on the mail server will be downloaded to your work station. This can be several thousand messages in many cases. IT Services can go into the mail server and delete your old messages before you unset the Leave mail on server option so that you aren't confronted with a lot of old mail.
If you always check your email from a single location, there is never a reason to have this option checked.
If you use another mail client that uses the POP3 protocol (e.g. Netscape),
there is most likely a similar configuration option. top
Some mail clients have a feature that allows users to automatically send a reply whenever a message is received. This is popularly called a vacation rule. It might seem like a handy feature to use when one is on vacation or otherwise unavailable for a time. But using a vacation rule can have unintended and very undesirable consequences.
The problem occurs when the person setting up a rule is on a mailing list (and since we all get facstf-l messages, we are all on at least one mailing list). Depending on the mailing list, there is a very good chance that your email mailbox will begin bombarding the email list with hundreds or even thousands of automatic messages in your absence. Needless to say, other members of the list will find this extremely annoying. The user who setup the vacation rule will be the one that everyone is irritated with.
If you setup a vacation rule in SquirrelMail, that vacation rule will actually work pretty well. You do this in the Filters area. Other mail applications do not handle this well and should be avoided.
If you are interested in what actually happens, it works like this:
1) You have setup a vacation rule which will automatically respond to every email message with "Hey, I'm on vacation. I'll get back to you on the 25th." (Remember, DON'T do this!)
2) You get messages from a mailing list in your absence.
3) Your email client automatically sends the vacation message - to the whole list. This would be bad enough, since the whole list does not really care to hear about your vacation, but the worst is yet to come.
4) Since you are on the mailing list above, you will receive your own automated reply back from the list. And, since you have a vacation rule in place, you send the list back a new automated reply to this automated reply. You are now in an endless loop of sending automated replies to the list in reply to your own messages. This can occur very rapidly, creating, in a very short time, hundreds or thousands of messages which flood the mailboxes of everyone on the list.
5) Obviously, by the time you return from vacation, you have become incredibly unpopular on said mailing list. Everyone has sent you messages to stop annoying them. Your email administrator is not at all happy, the organization hosting the mailing list is not happy, etc., etc., etc.
For all these reasons, IT Services requests that you never, ever setup a vacation rule exept using Squirrelmail. Please, just don't do it.
If you have any questions, please contact
IT Services. top
Newer versions of Thunderbird, Eudora, Netscape Messenger, and Outlook and Outlook Express, are IMAP email clients. In IMAP email clients, any message that is in your INBOX resides on the mail server.
To prevent using all of your quota, you can delete the message
(and purge the mailbox to remove the deleted messages) or you can move it somewhere
else. This is done differently in each of the IMAP email applications. top
Email filtering policies
Spam practices
Web mail
More policies
Web site comments ![[email link]](/library/images/mail.gif){kind=small} |
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