Differences between revisions 9 and 10
Revision 9 as of 2022-03-28 14:47:07
Size: 4977
Editor: MarkTearle
Comment: Update for clarity
Revision 10 as of 2023-02-10 22:52:51
Size: 4814
Editor: 192
Comment: get rid of startls
Deletions are marked like this. Additions are marked like this.
Line 52: Line 52:
 * '''Port''': 587
 * '''Connection security''': STARTTLS
 * '''Authentication method''': Normal password

or

 * '''Server Name''': submission.ucc.asn.au

Along with your UCC account, you get an email address of the form [email protected].

Much of this information is duplicated on the main website. This wiki page is however more up to date.

Forwarding your UCC email to another address

New members have the option to enter an email address to forward to upon creating their account. This will save the email address to the file .forward in your home directory.

You can change this any time, such as by connecting to motsugo over SSH and using nano ~/.forward. All you need is one line containing your email address, and all emails to your UCC email address will automatically be forwarded to the email address given in the file.

Accessing your UCC email

If you want to use your UCC email properly, and also be able to send mail from it, there are a number of options.

The settings necessary for popular email clients (Thunderbird, Outlook, etc) are listed below. For incoming mail, you can choose either POP3 (email is downloaded and kept locally) or IMAP (email is kept on the server and only cached locally).

For all mail-related authentication, use your UCC username (not email address) and password.

Webmail

UCC has multiple options for webmail: RoundCube and SOGo, and probably a few more that are no longer working. Simply log in using your UCC username and password.

Using another mail client

Autoconfiguration

UCC has DNS SRV records set up to auto-configure your mail settings per the details below for modern mail clients. If these do not work, please let us know / use the details below.

IMAPS (incoming)

These settings work in Thunderbird. They might not be applicable to other mail clients but you can probably figure it out.

  • Server Name (address): imaps.ucc.asn.au

  • Port: 993

  • Connection security: SSL/TLS (not STARTTLS)

  • Authentication method: Normal password

POP3S (incoming)

Use IMAP instead. It's much nicer.

  • Server name: pop3s.ucc.asn.au

  • Port: 995

  • Connection security: SSL/TLS (not STARTTLS)

  • Authentication method: Normal password

SMTP (outgoing)

  • Server Name: submission.ucc.asn.au

  • Port: 465

  • Connection security: SSL/TLS

  • Authentication method: Normal password

Again, use your UCC username (not email address) and password for authentication.

Outlook

When using Microsoft Outlook, the typical setup process will default your username to the specified email address, and hence will not work. To fix this issue, follow the steps outlined in this stack exchange thread. In the "Your Name: " field, use your UCC username.

Over SSH

If you like to use SSH or are paranoid about malicious 3rd parties sniffing your email configuration, you can check email with Alpine on Motsugo (run alpine).

Technical Details

imaps.ucc.asn.au, pop3s.ucc.asn.au and submission.ucc.asn.au are DNS CNAMEs to be used for bunch of different ports used for different things that are redirected to different servers by by haproxy running on Mailauesi. All services require authentication.

  • IMAPS / POP3S (ports 993 and 995) redirect to Motsugo and are served by dovecot.

  • SMTP (port 587 and 465) redirect to Mailfish and are served by postfix

secure.ucc.asn.au was the legacy host for this, and had a bunch of different ports used for different things that are redirected to different servers by our firewall, Murasoi.

  • IMAP / POP3 (ports 110 and 143) and IMAPS / POP3S (ports 993 and 995) redirect to Motsugo and are served by dovecot.

  • SMTP (ports 25 and 465) redirect to Mooneye and are served by postfix

Mail is stored in your home directory. A number of different configurations are permissible and will be recognised by postfix and dovecot (so your email can be stored correctly upon arrival and later accessed by your mail client), however only one that works is documented here.

  • postfix saves mail to /var/spool/mail/username.

  • dovecot reads mail from ~/mail/INBOX

  • To make the two work properly, a good idea is to symlink ~/mail/INBOX to /var/spool/mail/username.

    • You can do this from a shell on motsugo with mkdir -p ~/mail && ln -s /var/spool/mail/$USER ~/mail/INBOX

The various webmail interfaces generally use IMAP behind the scenes. Hence, if you not seeing your emails correctly, try the symlink fix above.