Creating your own Home Page

Accessing your email in the MIT Math Department

This page attempts to provide detailed information about the myriad ways to access your departmental email.

If you are logged into a linux workstation you may read your email by clicking the terminal icon on the bottom panel and typing pine. If you are using a non-departmental computer you can ssh to the department and type pine from the terminal window. If you are at computer without a ssh client you can use our ssh applet

If you are at a computer outside of MIT and the ssh applet doesn't work or if you prefer a browser based email client you can login to our webmail service at:
https://laurent.mit.edu

We also provide support for accessing your email through a graphical program such as Eudora or Thunderbird(and though discouraged, Outlook Express).

To use a graphical email program you will need to set it up to receive email using IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) over SSL ( Secure Sockets Layer). To send email you will need to set it to use SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) Auth over SSL. Below are instructions for the clients we support: (If you are using a unsupported email client, the information provided should prove useful in connecting to our mail server)

Thunderbird (these instructions should also work for Netscape/Mozilla Mail)
Eudora
Outlook Express
Mail (Mac OS X)
Pine

Mailing Lists

A list of relevant mailing lists for the department can be found on our Mailing Lists web page. (Note: Access to this web page is restricted to computers within the Math Deparment. If you wish to view this web page from a computer outside the department, ssh to the department and use a newsletter web browser such as lynx or links.)

If you would like to set up a mailing list, you have two options:

1) If the list is for your personal use and you don't anticipate others needing to mail to it you can use the alias/address book feature from within your mail client. The man page for your mail client will provide more information.

2) If you would like to create a mailing list that others can email to, send an email to help@math.mit.edu, which will create a trouble ticket, with the desired name of the mailing list. Instructions on populating the list will be sent to you.

Spam and Viruses

All incoming email to the department is subject to a vigorous screening process involving (among other things) checks against lists of known spammers and checks for viruses. Once email passes through the first set of checks it is scanned by a program named SpamAssassin. SpamAssassin is a filter that attempts to identify spam. More information on SpamAssassin, specifically how to customize it to your needs and redirect messages marked as spam to another mailbox can be found on our SpamAssassin help page

Please note that while the Linux workstations and our servers are rarely vulnerable to viruses, that infections on other machines can generate a large number of e-mails as they attempt to propagate. Some wide-reaching viruses will use a technique known as "spoofing" by which the virus randomly selects an address it finds on an infected computer. The virus uses this address as the "From" address when it performs its mass-mailing routine. Therefore, you may receive a return message by a site or individual claiming you sent them a virus. This does not mean that you've been infected, only that someone with your email address on their computer has been.