• Introduction
• Do you have a CMS account?
• Change Using Umenu
• Modify your .pinerc file
  

Introduction

The Central Mail Service (CMS) has one purpose: to handle email. The Unix Cluster is a group of computers that handles number-crunching, running programs requiring many calculations made with a high degree of accuracy. The two roles, email and calculating, are best done in separate environments. Many users are moving to the Central Mail Service for their email. Benefits are:

• Read email with less hassle
• Free the Unix Cluster to handle computations

We encourage you to consider moving your email to the CMS. It's easy! And you will still be able to view email as before if you are logged into the Cluster.

Traditional Unix accounts have been set up for you to receive email on unix.mail.virginia.edu. This is not an efficient use of the cluster's resources, and email does not fare well, either. What if you spend most of your time logged into blue.unix, because you are running programs and analyzing results? How can you receive and read email on the CMS, but stay logged into blue? The change can be made in one of two ways, and you can still use the Unix interface to read your email. As detailed below, use Umenu options to make the change, or edit your .pinerc file. Either way, you'll can appear to be reading email the same as always, but the email will be coming to you from the CMS!

Do you have a CMS account?

To see if you have a CMS account already, see http://www.itc.virginia.edu/helpdesk/accounts/ and choose Central Mail Service. Click on the text "Create a Central Mail Service (Simeon) account", and a window will open. Follow the instructions to check your status. If you have a CMS account, you will receive an error message when you try to create one. If you do not, the process will set up an account for you.

Change Using Umenu

This section describes how to change your email from unix.mail to the Central Mail Service. We assume you will still be reading email while logged into blue.unix. For detailed instructions on the entire process of migrating from unix.mail to the CMS see http://www.itc.virginia.edu/desktop/email/migrate/unix.html. In that document other emailers, such as Eudora and Simeon, are covered.

If you use unix from the command line, type umenu followed by Enter or Return. Select the following options from Umenu:

• (6) System Customization
• (7) Mail Preferences
• (1) Change the default Mailer

You must have Pine as your Mailer. At your current location in Umenu, point to Pine, even if it is already your default mailer. Type the "Enter" or "Return" key. When asked if you want Umenu mail to point to the CMS, type "yes". If asked whether to install new configuration files, type "yes". In some cases you will be given the chance to change your addressbook format to be compatible with pine - again, answer "yes". A .pinerc file is installed with all the necessary changes made for you.

You are now almost ready to receive email from the CMS. Go to the Mail Preferences menu again, and select (5) Forward All Incoming Mail ... When asked for the address, follow this format: user mst3k forwards email to mst3k@m.mail.virginia.edu. Note that the address is of the form "user_id@X.mail.virginia.edu" where X is the first character in your user_id. If you have trouble at this point, please call the HelpDesk at 924-3731 for a hint.

The last step is to go to the URL http://config.mail.virginia.edu and log in, choosing to register your email address on the Central Mail Server.

That's it! Now when you are logged into blue.unix, just use Umenu's Electronic Mail selection, and you will be reading your CMS email. For additional information, please refer to the document http://www.itc.virginia.edu/desktop/email/migrate/unix.html.

Modify your .pinerc file

This document section illustrates the second method for switching your email to the CMS. Please follow these steps to manually configure your Unix account to read email on the CMS.

You must use the Pine emailer.

• Go to http://config.mail.virginia.edu to register on the CMS
  
• $server_name, used below, is of the form X.mail.virginia.edu where X is the first character in your user_id.
  
• Edit your .pinerc file, completing the lines as indicated in the table below.
  
• Read your CMS email while logged into blue.unix - just type "pine" at the command line