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General Information

Email or e-mail (electronic mail) is the exchange of messages by telecommunication. E-mail messages are usually encoded in ASCII text, however, you can also send HTML and non-text files, such as graphic images and sound files, as attachments.

Mail services

CCIL provides a number of ways to check your email. We understand that each person has a different set of requirements for their Internet communication.

Email is increasingly important for your everyday life. CCIL's range of email and messaging solutions gives users a choice between Web-based, POP3 (Post Office Protocol) and IMAP4 email.

Users can send and receive email through any online computer using CCIL's fully integrated Web-based service.  CCIL's Web-based service allows users to access email through the Web without installing or configuring any special email software. Users simply point a Web browser to the http://webmail.ccil.org.

IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is the most advanced messaging access and control protocol available today. IMAP bridges the gap between POP and Web-based email, giving users the ultimate in functionality and accessibility. With IMAP, users access and manage email with the latest client software, but because email messages, folders and address books remain on CCIL's server, email is available from anywhere, anytime. Simply log in to the IMAP server from a desktop computer at home, a workstation at the office, or a notebook computer while traveling and view all messages and folders through an IMAP email client.


 

Mail server settings

SMTP Server: smtp.ccil.org
IMAP Server: imap.ccil.org
POP3 Server: pop3.ccil.org
Email address: your username@ccil.org
Password: your ccil password
Mail directory for PINE, Squirrelmail and WebMail: mail/

CCIL's Mailbox Services use Open Standards

  • IMAP4 - Internet Message Access Protocol - IMAP (the latest version is IMAP4) is a client/server protocol in which e-mail is received and held for you by the CCIL's server. You (or your e-mail client) can view just the heading and the sender of the letter and then decide whether to download the mail. This offers many advantages. You can access your e-mail from multiple locations like your office, home or on the road with your laptop and all your mail is one place. If you are using a dialup connection to the internet downloading just the email headers allows you to get to your important messages quickly. You can also create and manipulate folders or mailboxes on the server, delete messages, or search for certain parts or an entire note.
  • POP3 - Post Office Protocol 3 is the most recent version of a standard protocol for receiving e-mail. Your mail is saved for you in your mail box on the server. When you read your mail, all of it is immediately downloaded to your computer and no longer maintained on the server.
  • HTTP - The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is the set of rules for exchanging files on the World Wide Web. Typically HTTP or web browsing is used to download text, graphic images, sound, video, and other multimedia files. As the name implies a HTTP (Hypertext) file commonly includes references to other files. CCIL's service of webmail communicates to your web browser via the HTTP.
  • SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is a protocol for transferring e-mail between points on the Internet. You send e-mail with SMTP and a mail handler receives it on your recipient's behalf.
  • DNS - The domain name system (DNS) is the way that Internet domain names are located and translated into IP (Internet Protocol) numbers. A domain name like ccil.org is a meaningful and easy-to-remember "handle" for an IP number of 192.190.237.100.

    DNS also specifies MX (Mail Exchange) records. MX records define what server to direct mail to. For example ccil.org has an MX record of mercury.ccil.org, the e-mail of cp@ccil.org is sent to the server mercury.ccil.org.

Mail Relaying: sending mail

The abilty to send mail from other ISP's is limited. Unfortunately mail relaying must be limited or spammers would use our servers to send junk email to users all over the world. CCIL's mail server is configured to allow relaying from our local machines, our dialup lines and a few local ISP's. If you are using a local ISP and are having trouble sending mail, we can add it to our configurations. Send an email to the Help Desk Team for further details. At some point in the future we may offer support for SMTP authenication to allow relaying from other large ISP's. The easiest way to send and receive mail from other ISP's is to use CCIL's WebMail service, http://webmail.ccil.org.

CCIL IMP Horde WebMail ( Out of date - CCIL changed to SquirrelMail on 9/14/06 )

CCIL WebMail is a simple way to access your email. login with your CCIL user id and password. You will then see your INBOX. WebMail is a IMAP mail client, thus it leaves the messages on the server unless you delete them. If you use Netscape, Outlook or other client for email and use POP only the most recent emails will be available, if you use IMAP you can browse all your email.

CCIL's Squirrelmail [Click here for most of the information]

CCIL now offers Squirrelmail as the simplest way to access your email.
There is nothing to set up - to use it just go to http://webmail.ccil.org login with your CCIL user id and password.

Squirrelmail leaves your messages on our server until you delete them, so please observe the size quota for your mailbox !

Using Netscape Messenger

One common program for checking email is Netscape Messenger, which is part of Netscape Communicator. This program is available for most modern computing platforms including Windows, Mac, and Linux. These instructions are for Netscape 4.x, which is the most common version used today. Updated instructions for Netscape 6.x will be made avaible when it becomes more widely used.

To set up Netscape for CCIL email access do the following:

  1. Start Netscape
  2. Click on "Edit" then "Preferences" in the menu bar
  3. "Mail & News" then "Identity"
  4. Enter your name and the full email address userid@ccil.org
  5. Click on "Mail Servers" then enter "smtp.ccil.org" as "Outgoing Mail Server". Enter your userid (without the "@ccil.org") as the Outgoing mail server user name".
  6. Click on "Edit". "Server Type" _ select "IMAP Server"
  7. "User Name" should be without the "@ccil.org". Check the "password" block if desired.
  8. Click on the "IMAP" tab. The default bullet is "Mark it as deleted" Use this default, and later you can choose other options.
  9. Click on "OK" and "OK" again
  10. From the home page, click on the small "mailbox" icon at the lower right of the Netscape screen. This will automatically "synchronize" CCIL's mail box with yours.

Using Outlook Express 5.x

To use Outlook Express for email do the following:

  1. Click "Mail" Tab, then "Add".
  2. Click "Mail".
  3. "Enter your name" and click "Next".
  4. Bullet the I already have... And enter your full userid@ccil.org.
  5. Select "IMAP" from the pull down menu.
  6. Type "imap.ccil.org" for Incoming mail server and "smtp.ccil.org" outgoing mail server.
  7. Hit next.
  8. At "Internet mail Logon" screen type in your user id and password.
  9. Click "Finish".
  10. Next, you will see a box, with the account you just added.
    Click on it, so it highlights.
    Then click "Properties" to bring up the properties dialogue.
  11. Change the selected field to the title you want for the account. (It can be anything.)
  12. Press the "IMAP" tab on the properties window.
  13. In the box to the right of "Root Folder Path" type in "Inbox".
  14. In the Sent Items path, if you chose to save it on the server, chose "sent-mail" (this is consistent with WebMail)
  15. Click "OK", then "Close" to leave the "accounts" window.
  16. Click the "Send and Receive" email button.

Using Pine

Instructions for using Pine are available in Pine or on the Pine website at http://www.washington.edu/pine/.

Mail Forwarding

You can have your email forwarded to an account at another Internet site. Email a request to help@ccil.org and we'll set it up. If you want set it up yourself, create a file named ".forward" (without the quotes) containing the address you want your mail forwarded to. Using pico, create your .forward file by entering "pico .forward".

SPAM, Viruses and other mail filtering

About 1/1/07, after the new hardware was in service, CCIL was able to run some very sophisticated spam filtering software which has been removing 99.9% of spam before it ever gets to your mailbox.

Viruses are a big problem for users of Microsoft operating systems. Most often viruses are executed or infect Microsoft Windows when a user clicks on a file attachment, so DO NOT CLICK ON FILE ATTACHMENTS, unless the source can be trusted. When anyone in the world can send you email, you should not allow them to run programs on your machine unless you trust them. We suggest Microsoft users run virus protection software and that it be updated rigorously.

Backups and disclaimer

CCIL strives to provide very reliable mail services. Tests done by the administrator have verified that CCIL mail services are more reliable than most commercial providers. The Open Source software that runs this system is provided by the non-profit organization Software in the Public Interest, Debian Linux and others.

While our mail service is reliable, network outages, infrequent disk crashes and other problems can result in the loss of data. Backups of mail and other data is done nightly and those backups are intended to be for disaster recovery only. If the data is important enough that you don't want to lose it, you should make backups yourself.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. CCIL SERVICES ARE ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES ARE DISCLAIMED.

This page developed by CCIL webstaff and last edited Oct 2005.

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