School/Faculty Webmail Explained

• What it is
• Using WebMail
• Folder Management and Storage Space
• Alternating between WebMail and other email programs
• Pine users
• POP client users
• IMAP client users
• Secure webmail with self-signed certificates.

SquirrelMail is a browser-based email management program for users of EIE and Engineering Faculty email accounts, commonly known as WebMail. The WebMail is linked from the School's home page>>Quick Links or directly from http://www.ee.usyd.edu.au/webmail or http://www.eng.usyd.edu.au/webmail for Faculty Staff.

Here are some of the important things to remember about this program:

• Webmail is accessible from any web browser, on or off campus.
• To access your mail under WebMail, use the same user name and password that you normally use for your cassius/netserv account email.
• This program supports the use of folders, so that you can archive your mail in an organized way. Your messages are saved on the server, not on a desktop PC, so they will always be available to you, no matter where you are when you log in.
• Use of WebMail does not prevent you from using other email programs to access your mail. You can switch to WebMail and use it exclusively, or you can continue to use your current software and use WebMail only when you are away from your regular workstation. See below for some of the things to keep in mind if you take this route.
• WebMail has a personal calendar, a personal address book, and a "sent" folder that saves copies of outgoing mail.

With WebMail there's nothing to install or set up. The program is fully browser-based and is ready for use whenever you are. From any web browser, access the WebMail server using the web address http://www.ee.usyd.edu.au/webmail or http://www.eng.usyd.edu.au/webmail .

At the login screen, enter the same name and password that you normally use to access your cassius/netserv account email. The next screen you see will be WebMail's main page, containing an index of all the messages that are currently in your inbox.

The WebMail interface is simple and intuitive, and most of the functions are clearly labeled. If you're at all familiar with email programs you should have no trouble in locating the commands to perform standard email operations. Most of the functions you need are displayed as either buttons or hot links at the top of the screen.

There are however additional features you will want to explore when you get the opportunity, including the following:

• Organize your mail using folders. On the left panel in the WebMail window you will see, at a minimum, your inbox, drafts, sent, and trash folders (displayed in red text), as well as any other personal folders that you may have set up on the server (displayed in black). You can use the Folders link to add additional folders to the list.
• Maintain a personal address book. You can maintain a collection of your most frequently used email addresses -- click Addresses for access to this tool. Unfortunately there is no way to import an address book constructed in another program environment -- you'll have to re-enter them one at a time.
• Find a particular message. Click the Search link to access WebMail's powerful, flexible search utility. You can use this tool to locate specific email messages stored either in the inbox or your folders.
• Keep track of your appointments. Click the Calendar link to access your personal calendar program -- useful if you need to keep a record of your appointments on the server so that it can be located from any networked location.
• Set message attributes. If you have previously opened a message, its subject link will appear in bold underlined blue text. Once the message has been opened the subject line display will change to regular (non-bold) underlined blue text. That's how you can tell which messages you've already reviewed. WebMail provides a method for modifying these message attributes in batch mode by checking one or more message boxes and then clicking the Read or Unread button. You can also use use the flag feature to change the display color of selected messages from blue to red for emphasis.
• Setting up other options. The Options link takes you to a collection of additional configuration choices. Available on this page are tools for customizing the look of your implementation of WebMail, new mail options, message highlighting, and setting up an automated vacation message.

Most traditional email client programs that run on the user's desktop (such as Netscape Communicator and Microsoft Outlook) typically store the mail on the local hard disk, where excessive use of disk space affects only the user. As a web mail program, however, WebMail retains your inbox and any individual folders you may have created on the server in your account space. Because you are sharing communal disk space with other users, wise space management becomes an important issue.

Here are some hints for keeping things trim:

• Do not let mail accumulate in the Inbox. Your Inbox folder is stored in a separate area on the server where storage space is at a premium (your home account). It's good practice to review your mail regularly, discarding messages you don't want and storing messages you want to keep in personal folders.
• Empty your trash frequently. When you discard a message it goes into a special Trash folder and stays there until you empty the trash. That can be a convenience if you accidentally delete a message and need to get it back, but it's not good practice to use your trash folder as an archiving service (after all, you don't use your trash can as a filing cabinet!). Just as important, failure to periodically clean out your Trash folder can lead to wasteful consumption of shared disk resources. There's a small link labeled "(purge)" next to the Trash folder link -- use it to empty the trash periodically. AU administrators have implemented an automated reminder system that will let you know by email when your Trash folder grows too large -- if you get one of these messages it's a sign that it's time to do a little housekeeping.
• Clean out your folders periodically. Unless you really need to retain messages indefinitely, it's a good idea to go into each of your person folders and discard messages you no longer need. You might do this, for example, on an annual or semi-annual basis. Collections of email messages that you need to retain but do not need regular access to can be archived -- contact Information Services for assistance.

EIE supports one primary email server (cassius), which runs on a Unix machine and manages all incoming and outgoing mail. Fortunately users don't have to communicate directly with the main email transfer agent, but can instead choose between a number of client programs, including the traditional server-side program Pine, PC-based programs such as Netscape Messenger, Eudora, and Microsoft Outlook/Express, and the browser-based program WebMail. All of these programs do the same basic work of sending and receiving email, but each has its own feature set and look and feel. You don't have to limit yourself to one method. As long as you bear in mind the key differences between these tools, you can select from among the alternatives to fit your needs according to the context in which you're working.

This section describes how to use WebMail in multiple environments. "Environment" in this context means the various other email clients that might also be used to access your mail. If you plan to use only the Webmail application, you can stop reading right now and point your browser at the webmail site. If however, like many users, you will occasionally access your email by some means other than the Webmail client, then read on to learn some of the things you'll need to keep in mind.

The various environments are as follows:

• WebMail and Pine, a character-based program that runs on cassius.ee.usyd.edu.au/diesel.eelab.usyd.edu.au.
• WebMail and a PC-based POP client. In the past most of the email clients on campus have been configured as POP clients, which include Netscape Messenger (a module of Communicator), Microsoft Outlook (or Outlook Express), Eudora, and PC-pine.
• WebMail and a PC-based IMAP client users. Most email programs can be configured as IMAP instead of POP clients. The essential difference is that the mail stays on the server, and copies are downloaded for handling. This is relatively rare on campus as it was never the default setup, but selected users may have it for a particular reason

In general, alternating between WebMail and an IMAP client would be straightforward since WebMail uses IMAP and the two applications share the same user folders.

However, it turns out that there is a wrinkle. WebMail assumes that all of your email folders are stored in a parent folder called "Mail" in your home directory on the mail server. This folder is hidden from you in the normal day-to-day operations of your email. While this is not the default setting for the mail clients, it is an industry standard. However, since IMAP will work just fine without having "Mail" set as your email folders directory, some IMAP users here may have that situation and not realize it. The consequence is that the two applications may not display the same folders.

You can easily tell which situation you have after you log into WebMail. If you see the folder list that you are used to seeing in your IMAP email client, then everything's fine.
If however you don't see your folders, there is a possibility that you will have to "subscribe" to these hidden folders to bring them into WebMail's view.
Click on the "Folders" menu on the WebMail page. Toward the bottom of the next page you will see one or two boxes labeled "Unsubscribe/Subscribe". If you see your folders in the box on the right, then subscribe to them.
If you don't, or if there is no "box on the right" then you need to contact ITU for assistance in getting access to your folders.

SSL/TLS is used to secure communication between two end-points, usually a server  and a client (browser). When a browser accesses a web server using a HTTP protocol, the data is transmitted in the open. This is acceptable for most web pages  but poses a security risk for pages where sensitive data is entered, like webmail logins and online transactions.

If a login data is processed via the  HTTPS protocol the communication between the server and the brower is encrypted making it harder for a malicious third party to intercept and use it.

You can recognize a secure communication channel on the Internet by noticing https instead of http in your browser's address bar, and is most often used when transferring credit card and other personal information through the Internet on e-commerce or bank web sites . SSL pages usually take slightly longer to process because the data needs to be encrypted and decrypted between the server and the user.

In our case when accessing cassius Webmail from the school front page you will get a warning popup window, telling that the security certificate has been signed by a Certificate Authority that is not trusted by the browser.  This is so because I created a self-signed certificate for cassius.ee.usyd.edu.au and diesel.eelab.usyd.edu.au that is, cassius & diesel are both the issuer and the subject of the certificate. Apart of the nuissance of the popup window to which you need to press the yes button, security is not affected at all and all communications will be encrypted.

To avoid the warning popup window each time you fireup the webmail, just import the self-signed certificate into the list of Trusted Root Certificates for your browser using the Certificate Import Wizard.

With the webmail and security upgraded, other options like Options > Autoresponder/Mail Forwarding have been made available from webmail. Please click on the Options menu to see the list of features available for the latest version installed.