Mail Reading Programs
There are many programs on Mathnet workstations that can be used to read email. The recommended programs are listed and explained below for Unix/Linux and OS X:
Unix/Linux Mail readers:
Alpine is a terminal application and is very featureful and robust. Even if you don't use it as your primary e-mail reader, it is worthwhile to have a basic familiarity with pine because it's easy to use from remote locations. It is installed on the Unix and Linux workstations at present with OS X to follow shortly.
Thunderbird is a GUI mail reader. It is supported cross-platform (OS X/Unix/Linux) in the department. It features junk mail and organizational filters as well as a frequently updated feature set.
OS X Mail readers:
Thunderbird, as stated previously is a cross-platform mail reader that is easy to use and has lots of useful features.
Mail.app is an exclusive mail reader for OS X. It includes a flexible address book, POP and IMAP access and many other features.
Spam Filtering on the server
The Mathnet mail server rejects messages from hosts on certain block lists. It also implements several features that will not interfere with mail from SMTP compliant mail servers, but will interfere with mail from some of the spam sending programs that spammers use. If mail is rejected because the sender's SMTP server is on a block list, the sender should be notified by the remote SMTP server.
Mail Filtering Programs
There are two primary programs available for filtering and sorting mail: procmail and slocal. Both of these programs are general purpose filters. You will have to configure them to meet your needs.
Spam Filters
In conjunction with one of the above filters, you might like to use a filter designed to filter spam from email. On Mathnet, you can use SpamAssassin to filter spam.
Because configuring a spam filter can be a time consuming activity, the CSG offers a CSG maintained spam filter.
Virus Filters
The virus filter ClamAV is installed on Mathnet. It is used as part of the CSG maintained spam filter, but you can use it in your own custom filter. It is installed under /usr/local/clamav/ which is a symbolic link to the latest installed version.
Off Site Access
Mathnet email is available via two protocols: secure IMAP and POP. Some interesting documents comparing the two protocols can be found at imap.org. Many clients exist for POP and secure IMAP.
We provide some general guidelines for configuring IMAP and configuring POP.
You can read your Mathnet email via a web based IMAP client at the URL: https://webmail.math.psu.edu/.