UQ HomePrentice HomePrentice Support

Computing and Networking FAQ


2. EMAIL


[2.1] How do I obtain a UQ email address?

[2.2] What software do I need in order to use email?

There are two options. Note that the latter is only an option if your PC or Mac is configured for TCP/IP, and you have a direct connection to the campus ethernet backbone or dial in via modem and SLIP/PPP.

The recommended POP-mail client at UQ is Eudora for Windows or Macintosh. Licences for the full commercial versions are available from the Prentice Centre for $40.

NuPOP is a freeware mail agent for DOS suitable for use with SLIP or ethernet packet drivers. It also includes telnet, ftp and gopher clients, and is mainly useful for slow modems [ie. < 9600 bps] or PCs that cannot run Windows. It is more difficult to configure than Eudora or Pegasus, since all TCP/IP parameters [ip address, gateways, nameservers, etc.] must be entered along with mail account details. Works well over ethernet using a packet driver, but setting up SLIP is a challenge even for dedicated DOS enthusiasts. The key parameter for the UQ dialin annexes is MTU, which must be set to 256 [NuPOP can't handle fragmented IP packets]. Be prepared to make a lot of donations to Telstra if you venture down this path. Also be warned that NuPOP over SLIP is not officially supported by Prentice, though you may receive sympathy and admiration if you get it working.

Pegasus for DOS/Windows is another option if your department maintains a Netware server running a Mercury or Charon mail server. Contact your departmental network administrator for configuration details.

Software available for downloading

Shareware or Freeware
Commercial Eudora for Windows Upgrades

[2.3] How to configure Eudora?

For Prentice Network Resource Kits, your student or dingo username ["your_username" below] is written on your approved application form. From the "Special" menu, choose "Settings.." [Eudora 1.5x or 2.x] or "Configuration" [Eudora 1.4x], and enter the following details.

Please ensure that the "Leave mail on server" box is not checked, as this causes messages to pile up, and eventually leads to problems. For versions 1.5x and higher, there is an option to "Delete from server after __ days". This is useful if you access your mail from home as well as on campus, but should normally be set to no more than a few days.

We also recommend that you don't check the "Save password" box. Although this won't prevent anyone from gaining access to the messages in your Eudora mailboxes, it does ensure that you will remember your password. The annoyance of typing in your password each time you start Eudora is small when compared to the inconvenience of having to make a trip to the Prentice Client Service Counter if you are ever required to change your password, or if your Eudora configuration file(s) become damaged or corrupted.

If dialing in, it is also advisable to configure Eudora to check for mail no more frequently than every 30 minutes. Alternatively, set the interval to 0, which means that it will not check unless you select the "Check Mail.." option in the File menu. This will help reduce network traffic, and will also eliminate annoying delays when you are in the middle of ftp downloads or Netscape sessions.

[2.4] I can't read my mail messages. What's wrong?

Could be any number of reasons, depending on the symptom.

[2.5] How do I transfer email messages from student/dingo to my PC?

In pine, export the message to a file. This is done by pressing E whilst reading the message, entering a filename when prompted, then pressing the Enter key. When you quit pine, the message should be there in your home directory. Use the "ls" command to obtain a directory listing and to check the name of the file. See 4.2 for details on how to transfer it to your PC.

[2.6] How do I send an attachment in pine?

First you have to get the attachment file onto the mail server. Usually, you will have the file on your PC/Mac, and you access the mail server and pine by dialling in. See 4.2 below for details on how to transfer the file to your home directory on the mail server. Once this is done, run pine, create a new message, and press the Ctrl-J key combination. When prompted, type the name of the attachment file exactly as you did when you transferred it to the mail server.

Note that pine attachments need to be ASCII (ie. not BINARY or native Mac) files, since some mail gateways have problems with 8 bit data.. This means, for example, that if you wish to send a WordPerfect/Word document, a zip or archive file, or anything else containing binary data, you will first need to encode it into ASCII format. Mac users will need to do this BEFORE transferring to the mail server (eg. using Binhex), since unix hosts cannot handle native Mac files. PC users can do it prior to transfer using one of the many available shareware encoders (eg. into Binhex or uu format), or transfer the binary file and then encode it on the unix host by running "uuencode". The format of the latter command is

     uuencode filename1 filename2 > outputfile 
where "filename1" is the name of the file to be encoded, "filename2" is the name the file will be given when it is decoded, and "outputfile" is the name of the encoded file to be sent.

[2.7] How can I find out the email address of a UQ student or staff member?

Most staff email addresses can be found in the online Web index

At present the index is rebuilt twice-yearly from the AIS compiled internal staff phone book database. Responsibility for currency and accuracy presently rests with University departments and individual staff members, who should notify AIS AND webmaster@cc.uq.edu.au of new addresses and other necessary modifications.

The general format of email addresses for staff with UQ Network Access accounts is "j.bloggs@mailbox.uq.edu.au". If two or more people share the same last name and first initial, the first name may be spelled out in full, as in "joe.bloggs@mailbox.uq.edu.au".

Note that the Prentice Centre is responsible for UQ Network Access accounts, but NOT for the entire University "email address space". Many departments maintain their own mail servers.
(eg. lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au, psych.psy.uq.edu.au)

[NB - UQ addresses were originally specified using uq.oz.au instead of uq.edu.au as the domain. Although we are in the process of changing to the standard uq.edu.au format, some departmental servers are still only listed in nameservers in the uq.oz.au format]

To locate the email address of a staff member, we recommend taking the following steps.

  1. Search the online index using the staff member's last name as the search term. This should return a list of staff with phone and email address details, hopefully including the person you are seeking.

  2. If step 1 doesn't display an email address for the person concerned, use the index search mechanism to obtain a list of all staff members in the same department. Since department names are abbreviated in the index, as a rule you should do this by entering the first few letters of the department name as the search term (eg. Chem, Psych, Engl, etc.). [Note - the search engine doesn't currently support multiple search terms].

  3. Using the list obtained in 2, check the form of the email addresses for the relevant department. If all are of the mailbox.uq.edu.au [or mailbox.uq.oz.au] variety, you can send an email enquiry to postmaster@cc.uq.edu.au to check whether the person has recently obtained a mailbox address. On the other hand, if many are of the form
        username@server_name.dept_name.uq.edu.au
    or     "          "          "    .uq.oz.au
    
    [ eg. xxxx@lingua.cltr.uq.edu.au ] you should send an email inquiry to the corresponding postmaster [eg. postmaster@lingua.cltr.uq.edu.au ]

Please do not send requests to locate people or email addresses to "webmaster" unless you are sure the person is a staff member at the university, and that the information in the online Web index is incorrect or incomplete. As a rule, requests for staff contact details should be directed to the University switchboard (+617 3365-1111) or by post or email to the appropriate head of department.

Note that not all UQ staff have email addresses. If it is vital to send email to somebody in this category, we suggest selecting someone in the same department who does have an email address, and then asking their permission to act as a "go-between".

At present there is no index of student email addresses, though there are plans to introduce this service in the not too distant future.

[2.8] Can I print email messages to a local printer from pine?

This depends on the comms program/telnet application you are running on your PC or Mac. The pine documentation states that it "..is known to work with Kermit and the latest UW version of NCSA telnet on Macs and PCs, Versaterm Pro on Macs, and WRQ Reflections on PCs". If you are using something other than the above, try configuring pine to use an "attached-to-ansi" printer [S from the Main Menu, then P from the setup task menu, then 1] and see if it works. If so, fine, otherwise you're out of luck.

You can always Export the message to an ASCII file, then transfer it to your computer [see 2.5] and print from there.

[2.9] How do I set up a single copy of Eudora for Windows to access multiple mail accounts?

The basic idea is that each account requires a separate subdirectory to store the mailboxes and initialization file. Eudora for Windows accepts two optional parameters on the command line, the first being the name of the subdirectory storing the account mailboxes, and the second being the name of the initialization file that stores all the account settings (POP account, return address, SMTP server, etc..). Without these parameters (as is usually the case in most installations) Eudora creates mailboxes, as well as the default initialization file, eudora.ini, in the same subdirectory as the program.

The best idea is to create subdirectories in the Eudora directory, one for each account. The following instructions assume that the system is Windows 3.1 or 3.11 - Windows 95 users can perform the same operations via the "My Computer" icon, and by changing object properties. For illustration purposes, suppose Eudora lives in c:\eudora, and that two users, Matthew and Sue, need to share the PC. Obviously you will need to make the appropriate substitutions for names, or if Eudora lives in another subdirectory.

Note that you can move mailboxes from one subdirectory to another simply by copying the files with extensions ".mbx" and ".toc", so it is easy to reconfigure Eudora from single account to multiple account use if necessary. To avoid having to re-enter configuration details for the original user, copy the "eudora.ini" file to the new subdirectory, and rename it appropriately.

[2.10] How do I subscribe/unsubscribe to UQ mailing lists? How can I get more information on UQ mailing lists?

Mailing lists are managed by "listserver" software running on (usually) unix mail hosts. To subscribe to a mailing list you send an email message to the listserver, which has an address of the form listserver_name@server_domain_name. In the body of the message (not the subject line, which can be blank), you simply place a single line of text
    subscribe listname
where "listname" is the true name of the list to which you wish to subscribe.

Unsubscribing is similar - ie. you send an email message to the listserver [note: not the mailing list itself!] with message content

    unsubscribe listname

The exact details vary according to the listserver software. For example, to subscribe to the library CD-ROM database mailing list, LIBDB, you send a message to listserv@library.uq.edu.au with the single line in the message body

    subscribe libdb

Note that some listservers also require or accept your email address or full name on the "subscribe" line, as in

    subscribe   listname   YourNameOrAddress

The Prentice Centre operates a number of useful mailing lists via the majordomo listserver. Users can find out which lists are available, subscribe/unsubscribe, and obtain listings of other subscribers, by enclosing commands in email messages sent to majordomo@mailbox.uq.edu.au. A full list of majordomo commands appears below.

One you have subscibed to a UQ majordomo list, you post messages to the list by sending mail to an address of the form listname@mailbox.uq.edu.au. The most common problems associated with mailing lists are to do with unsubscribing. Many people send the "unsubscribe" message to the mailing list rather than to the listserver. In addition, changes to your email address can cause problems (eg. if you originally subscribed using an address of the uq.oz.au variety, and then changed your return address to the uq.edu.au format). If you have problems unsubscribing from a list, check the "To:" field of a list message that you have received recently, and make sure that the "From:" field of your "unsubscribe" message is identical. If you have multiple mail accounts and you have mail forwarding in place, you may need to send the message from a different account.

Majordomo listserver commands

In the commands described below, items in brackets ([]) are optional. If you include the optional item, don't type the brackets. Commands must be placed in the body of the mail message, not in the "Subject:" header line. Other than white space, the commands must be the first text in the message body. In other words, don't begin with "Dear Majordomo."


[ Contents | Question Index | Previous Section | Next Section | Support Page | UQ Home Page ]

Document last revised : 28 June 1996 [MM] UQ Computing & Networking FAQ

UQ HomePrentice HomePrentice Support

Computing and Networking FAQ


2. EMAIL


[2.1] How do I obtain a UQ email address?

[2.2] What software do I need in order to use email?

There are two options. Note that the latter is only an option if your PC or Mac is configured for TCP/IP, and you have a direct connection to the campus ethernet backbone or dial in via modem and SLIP/PPP.

The recommended POP-mail client at UQ is Eudora for Windows or Macintosh. Licences for the full commercial versions are available from the Prentice Centre for $40.

NuPOP is a freeware mail agent for DOS suitable for use with SLIP or ethernet packet drivers. It also includes telnet, ftp and gopher clients, and is mainly useful for slow modems [ie. < 9600 bps] or PCs that cannot run Windows. It is more difficult to configure than Eudora or Pegasus, since all TCP/IP parameters [ip address, gateways, nameservers, etc.] must be entered along with mail account details. Works well over ethernet using a packet driver, but setting up SLIP is a challenge even for dedicated DOS enthusiasts. The key parameter for the UQ dialin annexes is MTU, which must be set to 256 [NuPOP can't handle fragmented IP packets]. Be prepared to make a lot of donations to Telstra if you venture down this path. Also be warned that NuPOP over SLIP is not officially supported by Prentice, though you may receive sympathy and admiration if you get it working.

Pegasus for DOS/Windows is another option if your department maintains a Netware server running a Mercury or Charon mail server. Contact your departmental network administrator for configuration details.

Software available for downloading

Shareware or Freeware
Commercial Eudora for Windows Upgrades

[2.3] How to configure Eudora?

For Prentice Network Resource Kits, your student or dingo username ["your_username" below] is written on your approved application form. From the "Special" menu, choose "Settings.." [Eudora 1.5x or 2.x] or "Configuration" [Eudora 1.4x], and enter the following details.

Please ensure that the "Leave mail on server" box is not checked, as this causes messages to pile up, and eventually leads to problems. For versions 1.5x and higher, there is an option to "Delete from server after __ days". This is useful if you access your mail from home as well as on campus, but should normally be set to no more than a few days.

We also recommend that you don't check the "Save password" box. Although this won't prevent anyone from gaining access to the messages in your Eudora mailboxes, it does ensure that you will remember your password. The annoyance of typing in your password each time you start Eudora is small when compared to the inconvenience of having to make a trip to the Prentice Client Service Counter if you are ever required to change your password, or if your Eudora configuration file(s) become damaged or corrupted.

If dialing in, it is also advisable to configure Eudora to check for mail no more frequently than every 30 minutes. Alternatively, set the interval to 0, which means that it will not check unless you select the "Check Mail.." option in the File menu. This will help reduce network traffic, and will also eliminate annoying delays when you are in the middle of ftp downloads or Netscape sessions.

[2.4] I can't read my mail messages. What's wrong?

Could be any number of reasons, depending on the symptom.

[2.5] How do I transfer email messages from student/dingo to my PC?

In pine, export the message to a file. This is done by pressing E whilst reading the message, entering a filename when prompted, then pressing the Enter key. When you quit pine, the message should be there in your home directory. Use the "ls" command to obtain a directory listing and to check the name of the file. See 4.2 for details on how to transfer it to your PC.

[2.6] How do I send an attachment in pine?

First you have to get the attachment file onto the mail server. Usually, you will have the file on your PC/Mac, and you access the mail server and pine by dialling in. See 4.2 below for details on how to transfer the file to your home directory on the mail server. Once this is done, run pine, create a new message, and press the Ctrl-J key combination. When prompted, type the name of the attachment file exactly as you did when you transferred it to the mail server.

Note that pine attachments need to be ASCII (ie. not BINARY or native Mac) files, since some mail gateways have problems with 8 bit data.. This means, for example, that if you wish to send a WordPerfect/Word document, a zip or archive file, or anything else containing binary data, you will first need to encode it into ASCII format. Mac users will need to do this BEFORE transferring to the mail server (eg. using Binhex), since unix hosts cannot handle native Mac files. PC users can do it prior to transfer using one of the many available shareware encoders (eg. into Binhex or uu format), or transfer the binary file and then encode it on the unix host by running "uuencode". The format of the latter command is

     uuencode filename1 filename2 > outputfile 
where "filename1" is the name of the file to be encoded, "filename2" is the name the file will be given when it is decoded, and "outputfile" is the name of the encoded file to be sent.

[2.7] How can I find out the email address of a UQ student or staff member?

Most staff email addresses can be found in the online Web index

At present the index is rebuilt twice-yearly from the AIS compiled internal staff phone book database. Responsibility for currency and accuracy presently rests with University departments and individual staff members, who should notify AIS AND webmaster@cc.uq.edu.au of new addresses and other necessary modifications.

The general format of email addresses for staff with UQ Network Access accounts is "j.bloggs@mailbox.uq.edu.au". If two or more people share the same last name and first initial, the first name may be spelled out in full, as in "joe.bloggs@mailbox.uq.edu.au".

Note that the Prentice Centre is responsible for UQ Network Access accounts, but NOT for the entire University "email address space". Many departments maintain their own mail servers.
(eg. lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au, psych.psy.uq.edu.au)

[NB - UQ addresses were originally specified using uq.oz.au instead of uq.edu.au as the domain. Although we are in the process of changing to the standard uq.edu.au format, some departmental servers are still only listed in nameservers in the uq.oz.au format]

To locate the email address of a staff member, we recommend taking the following steps.

  1. Search the online index using the staff member's last name as the search term. This should return a list of staff with phone and email address details, hopefully including the person you are seeking.

  2. If step 1 doesn't display an email address for the person concerned, use the index search mechanism to obtain a list of all staff members in the same department. Since department names are abbreviated in the index, as a rule you should do this by entering the first few letters of the department name as the search term (eg. Chem, Psych, Engl, etc.). [Note - the search engine doesn't currently support multiple search terms].

  3. Using the list obtained in 2, check the form of the email addresses for the relevant department. If all are of the mailbox.uq.edu.au [or mailbox.uq.oz.au] variety, you can send an email enquiry to postmaster@cc.uq.edu.au to check whether the person has recently obtained a mailbox address. On the other hand, if many are of the form
        username@server_name.dept_name.uq.edu.au
    or     "          "          "    .uq.oz.au
    
    [ eg. xxxx@lingua.cltr.uq.edu.au ] you should send an email inquiry to the corresponding postmaster [eg. postmaster@lingua.cltr.uq.edu.au ]

Please do not send requests to locate people or email addresses to "webmaster" unless you are sure the person is a staff member at the university, and that the information in the online Web index is incorrect or incomplete. As a rule, requests for staff contact details should be directed to the University switchboard (+617 3365-1111) or by post or email to the appropriate head of department.

Note that not all UQ staff have email addresses. If it is vital to send email to somebody in this category, we suggest selecting someone in the same department who does have an email address, and then asking their permission to act as a "go-between".

At present there is no index of student email addresses, though there are plans to introduce this service in the not too distant future.

[2.8] Can I print email messages to a local printer from pine?

This depends on the comms program/telnet application you are running on your PC or Mac. The pine documentation states that it "..is known to work with Kermit and the latest UW version of NCSA telnet on Macs and PCs, Versaterm Pro on Macs, and WRQ Reflections on PCs". If you are using something other than the above, try configuring pine to use an "attached-to-ansi" printer [S from the Main Menu, then P from the setup task menu, then 1] and see if it works. If so, fine, otherwise you're out of luck.

You can always Export the message to an ASCII file, then transfer it to your computer [see 2.5] and print from there.

[2.9] How do I set up a single copy of Eudora for Windows to access multiple mail accounts?

The basic idea is that each account requires a separate subdirectory to store the mailboxes and initialization file. Eudora for Windows accepts two optional parameters on the command line, the first being the name of the subdirectory storing the account mailboxes, and the second being the name of the initialization file that stores all the account settings (POP account, return address, SMTP server, etc..). Without these parameters (as is usually the case in most installations) Eudora creates mailboxes, as well as the default initialization file, eudora.ini, in the same subdirectory as the program.

The best idea is to create subdirectories in the Eudora directory, one for each account. The following instructions assume that the system is Windows 3.1 or 3.11 - Windows 95 users can perform the same operations via the "My Computer" icon, and by changing object properties. For illustration purposes, suppose Eudora lives in c:\eudora, and that two users, Matthew and Sue, need to share the PC. Obviously you will need to make the appropriate substitutions for names, or if Eudora lives in another subdirectory.

Note that you can move mailboxes from one subdirectory to another simply by copying the files with extensions ".mbx" and ".toc", so it is easy to reconfigure Eudora from single account to multiple account use if necessary. To avoid having to re-enter configuration details for the original user, copy the "eudora.ini" file to the new subdirectory, and rename it appropriately.

[2.10] How do I subscribe/unsubscribe to UQ mailing lists? How can I get more information on UQ mailing lists?

Mailing lists are managed by "listserver" software running on (usually) unix mail hosts. To subscribe to a mailing list you send an email message to the listserver, which has an address of the form listserver_name@server_domain_name. In the body of the message (not the subject line, which can be blank), you simply place a single line of text
    subscribe listname
where "listname" is the true name of the list to which you wish to subscribe.

Unsubscribing is similar - ie. you send an email message to the listserver [note: not the mailing list itself!] with message content

    unsubscribe listname

The exact details vary according to the listserver software. For example, to subscribe to the library CD-ROM database mailing list, LIBDB, you send a message to listserv@library.uq.edu.au with the single line in the message body

    subscribe libdb

Note that some listservers also require or accept your email address or full name on the "subscribe" line, as in

    subscribe   listname   YourNameOrAddress

The Prentice Centre operates a number of useful mailing lists via the majordomo listserver. Users can find out which lists are available, subscribe/unsubscribe, and obtain listings of other subscribers, by enclosing commands in email messages sent to majordomo@mailbox.uq.edu.au. A full list of majordomo commands appears below.

One you have subscibed to a UQ majordomo list, you post messages to the list by sending mail to an address of the form listname@mailbox.uq.edu.au. The most common problems associated with mailing lists are to do with unsubscribing. Many people send the "unsubscribe" message to the mailing list rather than to the listserver. In addition, changes to your email address can cause problems (eg. if you originally subscribed using an address of the uq.oz.au variety, and then changed your return address to the uq.edu.au format). If you have problems unsubscribing from a list, check the "To:" field of a list message that you have received recently, and make sure that the "From:" field of your "unsubscribe" message is identical. If you have multiple mail accounts and you have mail forwarding in place, you may need to send the message from a different account.

Majordomo listserver commands

In the commands described below, items in brackets ([]) are optional. If you include the optional item, don't type the brackets. Commands must be placed in the body of the mail message, not in the "Subject:" header line. Other than white space, the commands must be the first text in the message body. In other words, don't begin with "Dear Majordomo."


[ Contents | Question Index | Previous Section | Next Section | Support Page | UQ Home Page ]

Document last revised : 28 June 1996 [MM]