New Accounts Will Use Eudora

If you're a faculty member or teaching assistant whose class materials instruct students to use PINE to access e-mail, you'll want to note the following changes. As of July 1st, new campus computer account holders will be assigned a POP server for e-mail storage and retrieval. New users will continue to receive permits to access ISUN machines, but will be encouraged to use Eudora to access their e-mail from POP servers. Campus users with existing accounts will not be affected by this change.

New POP Servers

Sol, which replaced Peseta as the main e-mail server and is accessed via the alias "mailbox," will continue to provide e-mail services to the majority of campus users. POP servers are being put in place to lighten Sol's load and distribute e-mail services among a group of servers. While Sol is a network server that communicates with all interactive servers (allowing users to check their e-mail from any of the ISUN machines), POP servers are isolated machines that are dedicated to e-mail delivery.

Bovine Online (see p. 6 of this issue) will support this change by providing PC- and Mac-based applications (Eudora, Netscape) that don't require logging in to a central host. For those new users who prefer to use PINE to send and retrieve e-mail, PINE's IMAP protocol allows users to communicate with a POP server. Users will have the option to have their mail redirected to "mailbox," if so desired.

The POP server project has two goals, to distribute the e-mail load across different servers, and to reduce the system overhead generated by an excess of unused ISUN permits.

Distributing the E-Mail Load

POP servers are dedicated to e-mail service for a small number of users (2,000 - 3,000). When each POP server has reached its capacity, a new server will be purchased. Dedication to a small group of users means that disruptions in service don't affect the entire campus, but only a small number of people.

Reducing System Overhead

Currently, every new campus account holder receives a permit to use the ISUN machines. Yet a large number of users retrieve and send their e-mail via Eudora and never use their ISUN permits to log in to an ISUN server. These permits entail an overhead that the system maintains whether or not the account is used. Reducing the number of users with ISUN permits saves disk space and other computing resources. It also reduces security risks: it is more likely that a break-in to an account will be undetected if the account is never used.

Adding permits is easy. By telnetting to mothra, an accounting and e-mail I.D. management database maintained on mothra.ucdavis.edu, users can grant themselves permits to various systems on campus. (Users must log in as "services.")

It is important that campus documents and publications be updated so it is not assumed that all users can access e-mail via PINE. More information about the new system of assigning computer accounts can be found at http://ir.ucdavis.edu/info/email.html. New users, especially, are encouraged to visit this Web site, where they will find instructions and details about using e-mail services at UC Davis.