Using email

1
Using email

• Messages sent from machine to machine and stored
  for later reading.
• You will use a client to read email
• Type mail or pine in UNIX to read email.
• Use programs like Outlook on Windows.
• Different mail servers use the same protocols to
  communicate with each other.

2
Mail Servers

• SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) transfers
  mail between servers.
• The mail server runs a program (daemon) that
  listens for clients connecting so people can read
  or write mail.
• On UNIX this program is called sendmail.
• A single protocol helps to ensure that different
  servers can communicate with each other.

3
Mail Clients

• POP -- Post Office Protocol
• Downloads all mail at once.
• IMAP -- Interactive Mail Access Protocol, adds
  features to POP
• Some Clients
• ELM
• PINE (PINE Is Not Elm)
• Outlook
• Eudora
• Netscape Mailer

4
Parts of an Email

• Body -- This is the actual message.
• Header -- information at the top of the message.
• From or Received who sent the mail.
• To Where the mail goes.
• Cc Other people who will receive this mail.
• Bcc Blind carbon copy -- a list of people who
  get a copy of the message but dont get listed.
• Subject What the mail is about.
• Date When the mail was sent.

5
The mail command

• You can use the mail command in several ways
• mail -- by itself, it opens your messages and
  lets you read them
• mail person_at_address -- lets you compose a
  message to someone at a certain address.
• mail -s (subject) person_at_address -- lets you
  send a message to someone at an address, with a
  certain subject.
• mail -s (subject) person_at_address lt text_file
  -- lets you send a message to someone with
  text_file as the body of the email.

6
Using mail

• When you are writing the mail message body, use
  D or ltentergt . ltentergt to end editing and send
  the message.
• If cc shows up, this is a list of other
  addresses you can enter if you wish to send a
  message to other people.
• C will kill a mail message you are typing.

7
Mail commands

• These commands are used at the prompt
• q -- quit and save
• x -- quit without making any changes.
• R or r -- reply to a message (r senders and
  recipients, R senders only.)
• f ltnumbersgt -- view the message headers.
• p or t ltnumbersgt -- show those messages

8
More mail commands

• d ltnumbersgt -- delete messages.
• u ltnumbersgt -- undelete messages.
• s ltnumbersgt ltfilegt -- append the messages to
  ltfilegt with headers.
• w ltnumbersgt ltfilegt -- append messages to ltfilegt
  -- message only.

9
Message Editing Commands

• Use these while writing the actual message
• r ltfilegt -- Add a file into the message.
• f ltnumgt -- add another email into the message
  (forwarding).
• w ltfilegt -- write the message to a file.
• q -- quit without saving
• p -- print the contents of the message.

10
Header Editing

• While editing a message you may use
• h -- lets you edit the header (to, subject,
  cc, bcc)
• These may also work
• s -- edit the subject.
• t -- edit the to list.
• c -- edit the cc (carbon copy) list.
• b -- edit the bcc (blind carbon copy) list.

11
Other Features

• alias -- combine addresses
• alias me johna_at_wam.umd.edu jra_at_math.umd.edu
• .forward file send mailto another address.
• Forward to self to get a copy on the sending
  machine.
• Listservs -- automatic mailing lists.

12
PINE

• A menu-driven client
• Uses pico as an editor
• Allows MIME attachments
• Main Menu
• C - Compose to write a message
• I or L - View messages
• Q - Quit

13
MIME Attachments

• Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension
• Add pictures, files to emails
• Can be dangerous with executables.
• Pine uses MIME instead of plain inclusion.
• Filename on attachment line when writing.