To use our internal mail server you have to follow a series of step:

1. Forwarding all of your incoming messages from the EPFL mail server to our mail server
2. Configure the web interface to access your new mailbox
3. Configure the mail client in your ws/laptop to access your mailbox

Go to the short version of this document if you know how to do the setup and you only want the configuration data.

<note> The configuration is more complicated than expected due to some limitation imposed by the EPFL policy regarding electronic mail. Namely, mail originating from outside EPFL can only be received by the central mail server. Therefore our server will only receive the messages forwarded form the central server. </note>

We are working also on a calendar usable from mail client/ical client/web, tell me if you can be interested.

1. Go to the administration page of your EPFL/imap account: https://ewa.epfl.ch/tools/
2. Authenticate with your usual gaspar account;
3. Select the English language from the link in the right on the page.
4. Click on Forwarding rules;
5. In the box insert your lth address: <username>@iscsrv15.epfl.ch
6. Save your seeing by clicking on Apply

You can also choose to keep a copy of your messages on the central server by flagging the Deliver a copy to inbox when forwarding e-mail option. In this case, you will have to periodically delete/move the mail messages from your mailbox as the quota on the central mail server is limited to ~ 1Gbyte.

<note> From now on, every incoming mail message is forwarded to your new mailbox </note>

1. Point your browser to https://ipgmail.epfl.ch (you will be asked to accept a self-signed certificate)
2. Login using the login and password you use on your workstation.
3. Proceed to configure your identity otherwise people will not be able to reply to your messages (at least those sent through the web interface):
   1. Click on Settings button on the top right of the page;
   2. Select Identities on the left most pane;
   3. Select the username@epfl.ch identity on the central pane;
   4. Fill the form with your data. The mandatory piece is the Email text field that must be set to your official EPFL mail address (name.surname@epfl.ch). In the images below you can see the default and correct settings for my account as an example.

The parameters to use on your e-mail client are the following:

• Incoming Mail:
  • account/server type: IMAP
  • mail server: lthmail.epfl.ch, or licosmail.epfl.ch, or algomail.epfl.ch, or lcmmail.epfl.ch;
  • port: 993/tcp (imaps, SSL authentication)
  • username: your unix <username> (the one you use for your workstation, and/or cluster access);
  • password: your unix <password>;
  • mailbox: <username>
  • address: firstname.lastname@epfl.ch
• Outgoing mail from within EPFL (workstations)
  • smtp server: ipgmail.epfl.ch, arnimail.epfl.ch, lthmail.epfl.ch, algomail.epfl.ch or lcmmail.epfl.ch;
  • Port: 225/tcp or 587/tcp
  • Encryption: STARTTLS

1. Open Thunderbird
2. Create a new mail account of type IMAP (Edit → Account Settings…)
3. Insert your real address surname.name@epfl.ch as mail address
4. Incoming server: ipgmail.epfl.ch
5. Incoming username: <unix username>
6. account name: you can put whatever you want to identify the account
7. Your account is ready, but we need to make some customizations.
   1. Open the Account Preferences panel and select the account just created
   2. Click on Server Settings
   3. Activate the SSL (or SSL/TLS) flag under Security settings.
   4. Verify that the Port: is 993, else change it by hand.
   5. Click on Synchronization & Storage
   6. Disable the “Keep messages for this account on this computer” flag. If this option is activated, thunderbird will copy all the messages from the server to the local disk and this will take a lot of time (talk about useless “features”).
   7. Select “Outgoing Server (SMTP) in the left part of the account window.
   8. If there's a default mail server, select it and click edit (if there's no mail server, click add)
   9. Description: you can put whatever you want to identify the account
   10. Server name: ipgmail.epfl.ch
   11. Port: 587
   12. Use secure connection: STARTTLS
   13. Authentication method: Normal password
   14. User Name: <your unix username>
   15. Click OK
   16. Close the account window (click again on OK) and close Thunderbird.
   17. Reopen Thunderbird and try to access your mailbox on ipgmail.epfl.ch. The system will ask for the acceptance of a certificate: Accept it. Now you can browse the folders on your new mailbox.
   18. Send a mail message to someone. The system will ask for the acceptance of a certificate: Accept it. it will also ask for your password, it's the same you used to access the mailbox.
   19. it's up to you if you want to memorize the passwords on the computer you're using, but I don't suggest it.

<note tip> To move your mail from local repositories and from the EPFL mail server, the simpler way is to use Thunderbird. Just drag and drop the mail folders in the new mailbox and the work is done. you cannot move a folder from the source do the destination server if a folder with the same name is already existing in the destination server. </note>

<note warning> PINE users have to follow these instructions to move their mail messages from PINE mailboxes. </note>

From now, you can send/receive mail message from the web interface or from the mail client (laptop or desktop). You can use these programs even in parallel mode (the web interface & the mail client can be used at the same time).

The mail server has an antivirus program and 2 level of antispam (one centralized and one local). Regarding security and space: the messages are recorded in a RAID level 6 system with a backup every night.

the short way