Email Services
Contents
What email services are available?
You may access email on bilbo through a Web browser (i.e., webmail)
or from an email client like Eudora, Outlook, or Thunderbird. To use
webmail just go to
webmail.bio.purdue.edu
from any Web browser. After entering your account
name and password, you will be able to perform basic email functions
like view messages, compose and send new messages, delete messages,
etc.
Although webmail is convenient, it isn't very flexible and is limited
in functionality. For these reasons most people use an email client
to access their email. Bilbo allows clients to connect to it using
the secure (SSL) versions of the POP3 and IMAP protocols. The basic
difference between POP3 and IMAP is where the mail is stored. The older
POP3 protocol typically downloads messages from the server and stores
them on the local computer. In contrast, IMAP is designed to maintain
the messages on the email server. This gives IMAP an advantage for
performing backups and for sharing mailboxes between users. The main
disadvantage of IMAP is that the client must be specially configured to
allow for off-line viewing of messages when not connected to the email
server.
Pine Instructions
The version of Pine that we have on bilbo does not directly support the
mail storage format that we're now using. If you want to use Pine,
it is recommended that you configure it to access your email through IMAP.
Here's how to set up Pine to access email on bilbo via IMAP:
- Start up Pine and select the SETUP option from the MAIN MENU.
- On the SETUP page choose the Config: option.
- Locate the inbox-path item and modify it as follows
(replacing username with your bilbo login name):
inbox-path = {bilbo.bio.purdue.edu/user=username/ssl}INBOX
- Exit the SETUP CONFIGURATION page being sure to commit the changes.
- Restart Pine and you should now be ready to access email from bilbo.
Note that you will be prompted for your bilbo password each time you
start up Pine.
