Use the programme "pine" to read and write emails. Email addresses at the Department of Computing Science always have the form

These e-mail addresses are set up on request by the postmaster (e-mail address: postmaster@Computing Science.Uni-Oldenburg.DE). Please state your name in the enquiry, as this will appear in the email address and may have been transferred incorrectly from the login application form to the computer when setting up the login. Such an email address has already been set up for first semester students.

Such a request can be sent, for example, as follows: first a text file filename is created with an editor containing the lines

"Hello postmaster!
I would like an e-mail address. My name is Hein Müller.
Yours sincerely, Hein"

. The content of this text file can finally be read with the command line

email postmaster@Computing Science.Uni-Oldenburg.DE < filename

can be sent.

By default, some email programmes use email sender addresses of the form

Loginname@Rechnername.Computing Science.Uni-Oldenburg.DE

Addresses of this form should only be used within the Department of Computing Science. Emails with such sender addresses are provided with a sender address of the form Vorname.Nachname@Computing Science.Uni-Oldenburg.DE at the latest when they are forwarded by the main ARBI email computer. Of course, this only happens if such an address has already been entered. If this is not yet the case, the email in question will be held back on the main mail server.

A query from the postmaster regarding the creation of an email address of the form Vorname.Nachname@Computing Science.Uni-Oldenburg.DE initiates the creation of the address.
As an e-mail with a sender address of the internal form

is forwarded to an address of the form

Vorname.Nachname@Computing Science.Uni-Oldenburg.DE

the sender address does not have to be entered separately in many e-mail programmes.

Emails that are sent to the address of the form

or to the address of the form (where 'computer name' is a computer of the pools of the ARBI systems)

are stored in a mailbox file on a server and can then be read with an e-mail client. Incoming e-mails can also be forwarded automatically. To do this, a .forward file must be created in the HOME directory containing the destination address (or several destination addresses separated by commas).

Example:
hein.mueller@t-online.de,

If, for example, a copy of the email is to be saved locally and a copy forwarded, your own login name must be included as a destination address in the .forward file:

hein,

Attention: The own e-mail address of the form

must never be written in the .forward file. In addition, no e-mail addresses may be written in the .forward file which in turn have a .forward file in the opposite direction. This will result in e-mail loops!

The e-mails stored in the ARBI can also be accessed from outside the ARBI computer using the POP3 and IMAP mailbox protocols. SSL-encrypted data transfer is also possible. The server name for these protocols is

weser.Computing Science.Uni-Oldenburg.DE

The SSL certificate is a 'self-signed' certificate, the authenticity of which cannot be checked using the root CAs built into browsers and email programmes. The certificate must therefore be accepted manually. The fingerprints of the certificate are

SHA256 Fingerprint=14:74:4A:BE:B4:7F:B0:3F:41:B2:0F:37:71:32:CF:4C:83:12:BD:0C:CE:21:F4:16:8F:9C:8A:44:7A:FD:1C:B3

SHA1 Fingerprint=B9:FF:E0:C3:5C:35:37:AF:07:EE:16:C0:19:D3:FF:E0:A6:72:35:EC

MD5 Fingerprint=91:DF:97:02:D4:35:05:76:C4:23:A0:43:80:BA:B6:C1

Email addresses will appear in lists of address traders after a certain period of time and will subsequently receive a large number of unsolicited emails ('SPAM'). There are various ways of dealing with these unwanted e-mails:

- read and delete if necessary,
- have them filtered/marked and read them later and delete if necessary.

The programmes 'spamassassin' for spam detection and 'clamav' for virus detection are installed as deputies for the large number of possible filter and marking programmes. The presence of files can be used to request the marking or filtering of your own e-mails. Marked emails can initially be ignored in order to read the emails that are actually of interest. In any case, the e-mails marked as SPAM should be checked regularly, as it cannot be ruled out that 'good' e-mails have not also met the criteria for SPAM and have been marked as such.

To activate spamassassin or clamav for incoming emails, you must create files:

~/.mta_spamscan to request the marking of SPAM by spamassassin,
~/.mta_virusscan to request the marking of viruses by clamav,
~/.mta_spamstore to request the removal of emails recognised as SPAM to ~/mail/Spam,
~/.mta_virusstore to request the removal of emails recognised as viruses to ~/mail/Virus.
The files can simply be created using a null command with output redirection:
:> ~/.mta_spamscan
and, if necessary, deleted again using the 'rm' command:
rm ~/.mta_spamscan

After the initial processing of emails, files are stored in the directory ~/.spamassassin. Of particular interest is the file ~/.spamassassin/user_prefs, which can be used to make detailed settings for Spamassassin. The details can be found in the online manuals for the programmes. Further tips and hints can also be found on the Internet.

Quite independently of the e-mail addresses at the Department of Computing Science, e-mail addresses are set up by the central IT services facility using the data from the Admissions office. E-mails sent to these addresses are stored on the computers there. Students of the Department of Computing Science generally use the e-mail addresses of the ARBI.