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.
POP account : your_username@student.uq.edu.au Return address : same as POP account SMTP host : smtp.uq.edu.au
POP account : your_username@dingo.uq.edu.au Return address : your mailbox address eg. j.bloggs@mailbox.uq.edu.au SMTP : smtp.uq.edu.au
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.
Possible causes are (a) your mail program (eg. Eudora) configuration is incorrect; (b) there is a campus network problem - eg. a router or nameserver problem, or your mail server is down; (c) your TCP/IP configuration is incorrect, or your ethernet or SLIP connection is malfunctioning; (e) you have too much mail in your inbox on the mail server.
Firstly, verify that the host name specified in the "Connecting to host..." message is your correct SMTP mail host. For network access clients, it should be smtp.uq.edu.au. For departmental mail servers it will usually be different (eg. lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au). If the host name is correct, proceed to the next step, otherwise change your mail program setup (eg. see 2.3) and try again.
Probably the next step should be to ensure that all modem or network cables and connections are in place and fastened securely. This may not help except possibly with (d), but it's one of the commandments of network troubleshooting, so it should always be one of the very first things you check.
To investigate the possibility of (b), if you are on campus, check to see if the problem is widespread within your department. If so, there are campus network problems, and you should report the matter to the Prentice Centre Client Service Counter [3365-4400] if someone has not already done so.
If the problem seems to be isolated to your computer, or it is difficult to check (eg. you have a dialin connection), try to establish a telnet session on your mail host - eg. by running QVTNET/WINQVT or NSCA telnet. If you can do this successfully, the problem is almost certainly (e) - too much mail in your inbox [see below].
If you can't open a telnet session on your mail host, try connecting to other hosts. Another way of testing this is via Netscape or Mosaic. If you don't have any success contacting other hosts, either on-campus or remote, the problem is almost certainly (d), your TCP/IP configuration or your network connection. If you have limited success - for example, you can contact/connect to some hosts but not others - the problem is either your TCP/IP configuration - specifically, the gateway or nameserver entries - or there are campus router or nameserver problems. If you can connect to other hosts but not your mail server, it is probably down.
Key entries in your TCP/IP configuration are :-
IP address 130.102.xx.yy the unique address assigned to your computer, where xx and yy are numbers between 1 and 254. Gateway 0.0.0.0 or blank for SLIP/PPP OR 130.102.xx.zz where xx is usually the same as the third number in your IP address, and zz is usually 30 (on-campus ethernet) DNS or 130.102.2.15 Both addresses should be nameserver 130.102.128.43 specified here. Net mask 255.255.255.0The problem (e) [too many much mail in your inbox on the mail server] happens because your POP-mail client (eg. Eudora) "times out" before the popper process on dingo/student can process your mail. You may have configured Eudora to "Leave mail on server", or you may have received a message with a very large attachment. To avoid reoccurences of this problem, make sure your mail program is not configured to "Leave mail on server", and don't encourage people to email you attachments unless they are small (eg. less than a few hundred kilobytes).
This problem can be tricky to fix, but the first step is to open a telnet session on your mail host. If you use this for file storage, delete as many files as you can to free up some of your disk quota, and then run "pine". If pine opens the INBOX folder successfully, delete as many messages as possible - remember that if you run a POP-mail client such as Eudora, you probably have these on your PC or Mac anyway. Do the same for other folders, then quit pine, making sure to answer "Y" to the question "Expunge the ... deleted messages?"
In the worst-case situation, pine may hang when trying to open your INBOX folder. In this case, unless you know unix, you will need to contact the network administrator responsible for the mail server. However, if you know enough unix to obtain listings of subdirectories and delete files, you may be able to fix it yourself. Check to see if there is file called /tmp/.your_username.pop - if so, it contains some or all of your INBOX, and is too big for pine/popper to handle. If you are sure that there is no mail, new or otherwise, that you couldn't possibly live without, you can delete this file [you own it]. This will almost always solve the problem. If you think there are messages in there that are vital to your well-being, you could transfer the file to your computer via ftp or zmodem [or extract the useful bits using an editor] before deleting it from the mail server.
Caused by (a) too much mail in your INBOX on the mail server, or (b) your PC crashed or your modem disconnected when Eudora [or other POP-mail client] was in the middle of retrieving messages.
(a) is indicated if the above message appears when you ask your POP mail client to check/retrieve mail again after you have initially receiving a "time out" or "unable to contact host" error message. [Explanation : the popper process on the mail server is still running when you try to check for mail the second time. Eventually the popper process on the server should time out. If you wait a few minutes and try again, the error message will revert to the "time out" or "unable to contact host" variety.] See 2.4.1, specifically the suggested remedy for (e).
(b) is indicated if this is the only error message you get, even after shutting down your mail program for a significant time (eg. 15 minutes) before retrying. Unless you know unix and have privileges on your mail server, intervention by a network administrator is required. For privileged unix folk, the command
ps -aux | grep your_usernameshould reveal the pid (process id) of your rogue popper process, and kill -1 pid should get rid of it.
Corrupt table of contents file for the mailbox. Quit Eudora and delete the appropriate .toc file in the Eudora subdirectory or folder. For example, if the "In" window won't display any messages, delete the file called "In.toc", then restart Eudora. [Note that you will lose the status - ie. the S, R, or F setting - of each message in the mailbox, but apart from that, the messages will be intact.]
Corrupt ini/preferences file. From the Eudora "Window" menu, select "Tile Horizontal" or "Tile Vertical". If this doesn't fix the problem, quit Eudora, delete the mailbox .toc file (see 2.4.4), then restart Eudora.
See 2.4.1 (e).
This one seems fairly obvious, but there are some traps. Many TCP/IP applications which require sending password information to connect to a host server (eg. Eudora) impose restrictions on the characters which they can handle in username/password validations. For example, Eudora won't deal with spaces correctly, so to be on the safe side, don't use these in passwords. To check that your password is correct, telnet to dingo or student and try logging in.
Note that there are some variations in the error messages passed back by the POP server (ie. the mail host). The message will be slightly different if your password has expired. Note also that for new accounts on student and dingo, you are required to change your password immediately you login for the first time. Eudora and other POP mail clients cannot check for mail under these circumstances, and will report a "Shh! Password .." type error message. To really see what's going on, you need to telnet to your mail server and try to login.
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 > outputfilewhere "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.
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.
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 ]
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.
You can always Export the message to an ASCII file, then transfer it to your computer [see 2.5] and print from there.
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.
c:\eudora\eudora.exe c:\eudora\sue sue.inithen click OK.
c:\eudora\eudora.exe c:\eudora\matthew matthew.ini
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.
subscribe listnamewhere "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.
A line that starts with a dash (-) is also treated as an "end" command by newer versions of Majordomo. Because many peoples' mail message signatures start with some dashes, this avoids error messages.
Document last revised : 28 June 1996 [MM]