The standard Unix electronic mail program, mail, is very primitive and difficult to use. We recommend that you use one of the following methods of handling your electronic mail: emacs, alpine, or OpenWebmail. More details are given in the following sections.
These methods of reading your mail access it directly on the Unix host, and store saved mail in folders on that host. If you want to use a Web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) or Firefox to read and store your Unix mail on your home computer, then you need to use the POP or IMAP protocol to fetch your mail. Because of the security hazards of reading mail from a browser on a Windows computer, POP and IMAP access is not supported on the Department's servers. If you want to read your Unix mail in this way, you must forward it to the Fordham University Lotus Notes server (using the method described in the previous section) and use POP or IMAP to access it there. This server scans all mail for known viruses and other hostile content, rendering it safer (but not safe!) for this mode of access. Instructions for dealing with your mail in this way are given in the section on Lotus Notes mail below.
To send mail to another user on a local Unix host, the address is simply the username, e.g. joeuser. To send mail to a user on another host on the campus net, the address must include the username and node name, e.g. joeuser@fordham.edu. To send mail to a user elsewhere on the Internet, the address must include the full internet address, e.g. joeuser@gnu.mit.edu.
The usual method is to compose and send a message using one of the mail-handling programs described in the next sections. It is also possible to mail an existing text file using the Unix mail program: