F.A.Q.
If your question is not answered on this page or you do not understand the answer, you can contact the Helpdesk for technical help.
- Email
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Should I ever type my password into an email?
No. Never type your password into an email.
For more information see Is this a real email?.
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Is this a real email or a spam or phishing email?
“Phishing” is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and other sensitive information, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity (from Wikipedia).
Neither ITaP nor Math IT will ever ask you to reveal your password in an e-mail response, or over the phone, or in person. They will never send you a URL in an e-mail to click on that will ask you for your password; if necessary, they will give you instructions on how to get to a certain web page from the Math department home page or the Purdue home page. Additionally, neither ITAP nor Math IT will ever ask for any sensitive information (your date of birth, your Social Security Number, etc.).
Please feel free to email helpdesk@math.purdue.edu if you’re wondering about a specific email; however, if you have any suspicions about an email, it’s probably spam.
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Email Settings
Incoming Mail Servers
- IMAP: imaphost.math.purdue.edu — SSL Port: 993
- POP: pophost.math.purdue.edu — SSL Port: 995
Outgoing Mail Servers
- mailrelay.math.purdue.edu
- smtp.purdue.edu
Webmail
Webmail can be accessed at the following address:
webmail.math.purdue.edu -
Mac Mail.app is locked
Email clients, like Mail.app and Thunderbird, like to know that they’re the only program accessing email stored on the local machine. This avoids potential email file corruption.
Sometimes, however, these email clients get confused and insist that another program is writing to their files. If this happens to you, you can assure Mail.app that its files are okay by removing a lock file.
From the command line, run this command:
rm ~/Library/Mail/Envelope\ Index.lock
From Finder, navigate from your home directory, to Library, to Mail and drag the Envelope Index.lock file to the Trash.
Of course, sometimes Mail.app files really do get corrupted. If you continue to experience problems, you can reset Mail.app and wipe out all of its settings and start fresh*.
From the command line, run this command:
rm -rf ~/Library/Mail ; rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist
Now open Mail.app and (re)create your mail account.
* Sometimes a fresh start is a bad thing. If you use POP to grab your email from the server, you should not do this. If you have spent lots of time writing client side email filter/rules, you should not do this.
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Using Thunderbird from home or on a laptop
Due to the way Math’s email servers are configured, email cannot be sent through them (to another destination) unless you are on the Math network (in the building and plugged into a Math network jack). Although one can still read mail from their math.purdue.edu email account, they must send through a different smtp server. Below is illustrated how to set up Thunderbird to receive email from a math account while sending email through Purdue’s servers. This configuration works anywhere and requires that you know both your Math login/password and your Purdue Career Account login/password.
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Securing Email
One, relatively easy, method for encrypting your email can be had through the use of an S/MIME certificate. Thawte is an international company that provides free email certificates.
The below links provide some rudimentary documentation for signing up with Thawte, generating your certificate and installing it in your email client.
- Digital Signatures and Email Security
- Obtaining a Thawte Login
- Creating your Thawte Certificate
- Downloading your Thawte Certificate
- Installing your Thawte Certificate
Please report any errors to helpdesk@math.purdue.edu.
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Alligate options
Alligate is the server-side spam blocking software that we love to hate. It blocks the vast majority of spam messages to .math.purdue.edu email addresses and is careful not to block legitimate emails. Below are some commands that you can use to get even more out of Alligate:
To execute these options, send an email to the following address and include the option in the subject line.
alligate@mailrelay.math.purdue.edu
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Options to enter in subject line:
- To “un-whitelist” an address, enter disallow::someone@somewhere.com
- To “allow” an address, enter allow::someone@somewhere.com
- To “block” an address, enter block::someone@somewhere.com
- To retrieve your digest, enter Send Digest
Note: You may receive a confirmation message you must respond to before the action is completed.
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Purdue People Lookup in Mac Mail
One can easily add lookup functionality to their email client that makes it trivial to find people’s email addresses given their names. By simply typing a name in the To: or CC: fields, Mac Mail will query an IT@P server for email addresses that belong to the typed name.
Here’s how to set it up:
- Open Mac Mail
- From the top Menu goto Preferences:
- Next, open the “Composing” tab on the top of the dialog windows and choose the “Configure LDAP” button:
- Once the “Configure LDAP” window appears, click the +button in the lower left-hand corner. This window should appear:
- You need to fill the fields as shown in the below image:
- If you want to use the lookup functionaliy from off-campus, you should enter your Purdue Career Account username and password and set the “Auth Type” to SSL.
- Click the “Save” button.
- If you want to query the Mathematics Department server as well as Purdue’s, click the + sign in the lower, left-hand corner and fill out the fields with the below values:
- Finally, click the “Done” button.
- Be sure to check the “Automatically complete addresses” button on the “Composin” tab of Mail’s Preferences.
Start a “New” email message, and type the name of a Purdue person, the name should automatically be translated into an email address.