Staff and Faculty Electronic Mail Accounts
Department of Information Technology Resources
Lehman College draft
updated 23 February 2003
updated 13 May 2003
All Lehman College staff, faculty and students are entitled to electronic mail accounts on our email server (alpha.lehman.cuny.edu), and most receive their accounts automatically. Lehman College email accounts may send mail to and receive mail from any Internet address. Accounts are automatically created for full and part-time employees on the New York State tax-levy payroll and upon request for other staff including employees of the Research Foundation. Individuals in these other categories must submit an application for an email account. While not the focus of this document, students in credit-bearing programs automatically receive email accounts when they complete their first registration at the College.
Accounts are generally available no more than five business days after an employee's record is entered into the City University Personnel System (CUPS), which does not necessarily coincide with the employee's first day on the job, or no more than five business days after submission of an application.
Information on your email account may be obtained at the Help Desk in the Information Technology Center, 108 Carman Hall. You will need to present a valid Lehman College CUNYCard. Account information will not be given out over the telephone. Help Desk staff will assist individuals who have problems obtaining an account or questions about email account policy and procedures.
Since the College is relying more and more on email as a means of communication, it is important that all staff and faculty obtain their accounts and find a convenient and effective way of checking, sending and managing their Lehman email.
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An email account is comprised of a login name (sometimes called a username) and password. Login names are automatically created using a combination of characters from first and last names. Due to the volume of accounts, we cannot accept requests for a preferred login name.
For purposes of email, you can think of your login name as pointing to a mailbox residing on a computer designated alpha.lehman.cuny.edu on the Internet. The Alpha is referred to as an email server since it receives mail and sends mail on your behalf. Access to your mailbox is protected by your password.
Your Lehman College email address is formed by your login name, followed by the "@" symbol, followed by "alpha.lehman.cuny.edu." For example, the email address of a staff member with login name jsmith is:
jsmith@alpha.lehman.cuny.edu The address may be shortened to:
jsmith@lehman.cuny.edu
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In addition to personal email accounts, departmental, program-related or other special purpose accounts may be obtained upon submission of the appropriate application.
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How do you use your Lehman email account? How do you check your mail? Send email? You have two main options.
Log in directly to the Alpha server via telnet or direct dial-up
Email is not directly delivered to your Windows or Macintosh microcomputer. This would require lots of specialized software and maintenance and a permanent connection to the Internet. Not very practical for most of us. Instead mail is delivered to the Alpha and stored until you are ready to read it. One way of using your email account, then, is to log in directly to the server. This requires that you make your microcomputer look like a terminal (a process called "terminal emulation") and remotely log in to the Alpha. This is typically done these days through some version of telnet. You can run a telnet program from a computer connected to the campus network or to the Internet via an Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as AT&T WorldNet, Microsoft Network, cable modem or DSL service. Microsoft Telnet is shipped with all currently available versions of Windows. NCSA Telnet is available for free for the Apple Macintosh.
Another way to log in directly to the Alpha is to use a communication program such as HyperTerminal (also included in all versions of Windows), Kermit, or Procomm and a modem to directly dial- up our modems on campus. There is no charge for this service (except for the cost of the phone call).
Using an email client program
Another way to manage your Lehman email is to use an email client program such as Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook, Eudora, or Netscape Mail on your personal computer. They are referred to as "client" programs because they work in conjunction with the Alpha server by retrieving your email from your mailbox on the server and downloading it to your microcomputer and sending your outgoing mail to the Alpha server for routing to the Internet.
Other options
Other possibilities include forwarding your Lehman mail to your preferred email account and using web-based services such as Hotmail and mail2web to retrieve your Lehman mail.
There are advantages and disadvantages to managing your email through a terminal session on the Alpha or through an email client. Initial alpha passwords are set to expire upon first use and every 120 days thereafter. And the only way to update a password is to log in directly to the server. The Change Password option in Eudora, for example, does not work. So everyone needs to be familiar with this process, at least for the purpose of setting a new password.
Another advantage to telnet is that all your mail, mail folders and address books remain on the central server and may be reached from any Internet-connected personal computer running telnet. Since all the mail remains on the server, it is a good solution for those of you who use unsecured or shared computers in public computer labs and who routinely check your email from multiple locations. On the other hand, the Alpha is running the UNIX operating system. Commands are entered from the keyboard. The Alpha does not have the familiar Windows or Macintosh graphical interface. Furthermore, the Alpha cannot display most attachments to email since these are generally in a microcomputer software format (e.g. Microsoft Word).
An email client program will allow you to compose, send, receive and manage your mail using the standard Windows or Macintosh interface and to read most attachments immediately. On the other hand, since email client programs usually download your mail to the personal computer, it is difficult to keep track of your mail if you check your mail on more than one computer. And email client programs, unlike telnet, have certain limitations when used off-campus.
With some effort and information you can workaround most of these limitations and find the approach or combination of approaches that will work best for you.
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Whether or not you choose to use telnet to manage your Lehman email, you will need to login directly to the server to update your password. The Change Password option in email client programs such as Eudora will not work.
Before you start this process it is a good idea to select a new password since if you do not respond quickly enough to the prompts, the system will time-out and you will have to start all over again. Passwords must be at least eight characters, may include alphabetic and numeric characters, may not be a common word found in a dictionary and may not be the same as a previous password. You should avoid proper names. Passwords are intended to protect your account from being used by someone else and to protect the rest of us from someone misusing your account to jeopardize the entire campus network. Please choose a password that is difficult for others to guess but easy for you to remember. You could, for example, combine two words, add numbers to words, use mixed case and use certain special characters such as the percent sign.
Remember that passwords expire on new accounts and every 120 days on existing accounts. If you find that email client program is no longer accepting your password, it is possible that the password has expired.
All versions of telnet will require you to supply the Internet address of the computer you want to connect to. This computer is usually referred to as the host. In our case the hostname is alpha.lehman.cuny.edu. For example, to run Microsoft Telnet on a Windows system and connect to the Alpha, click on Start in the Task Bar. Click on Run. In the Open text box type:
telnet alpha.lehman.cuny.edu Then click OK.
Regardless of the version of telnet you use, the Alpha will prompt you to enter your login name:
login:
Login names, passwords and commands on this system are case sensitive. Login names on the alpha use all lower case characters and must be entered exactly that way. At the login: prompt, type your login name (e.g. jsmith) and press the key.
login: jsmith
At the password prompt,
password:
type your password followed by the Enter key.
You will not see any characters on the screen when you enter your password.
If you make a mistake when entering your login name or password, press the Enter key once or twice to get back to the login prompt. The delete, backspace and other editing keys usually do not work when entering your login name or password.
If you receive a login incorrect message, you may have mistyped your login name or password. Check that the Caps Lock key is not on. Try again.
If this is the first time you are using your account, the password will expire. You will be prompted to enter your old password. "Old" really means "current," the password you entered when you logged in. Again, you will not see anything on the screen as you type your old (and new) passwords.
Old password:
Reenter this password and press Enter.
You will then be prompted to enter a new password.
New Password:
You will be prompted to re-enter the new password for verification purposes.
Reenter new password
If you are successful, the command prompt, usually a dollar sign ($) will appear on the screen. The system is now waiting for you to enter commands.
There are three important commands, all of which must be followed by the Enter key:
passwd
passwd allows you to change your password at any time. You do not have to wait until it expires.
pine
pine invokes the Pine email program running on the Alpha. Type this command if you plan to check and send mail from the telnet session. A document on Pine email developed at the University of Washington is available at the Help Desk. Online help is also available within the program. Note that this version of Pine is not the same as the PC-Pine program you see installed on many computers on campus and represented by the pine tree icon on the Windows desktop.
exit
exit logs you off the Alpha. Don't forget to enter this command when you are finished. Do not just get up and walk away from the PC. The exit command should be entered before you close the telnet window.
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Email clients are programs running on your personal computer. As mentioned above, they retrieve your new mail and download it to the PC and send your outgoing mail to the server for routing to the Internet. They also include features like the ability to create folders to organize your mail and to create address books of email addresses. Common email programs include Eudora, Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook and Netscape Mail. Eudora may be downloaded for free from http://www.eudora.com. Outlook Express is distributed with Internet Explorer. Netscape Mail is a component of the Netscape browser. Outlook is part of the Microsoft Office suite.
These programs must be setup or "configured" to work with your Lehman email account. Here are some typical settings:
| SMTP or Outgoing Server
| alpha.lehman.cuny.edu
|
| Email protocol
| POP or POP3
|
| POP or incoming server
| alpha.lehman.cuny.edu
|
| POP account
| yourloginname@alpha.lehman.cuny.edu
|
| Login name
| yourloginname |
While these programs are designed to download your mail from the server and then delete the mail from the server, most of these programs have the option to leave your mail on the server. This would allow you to receive the same mail from another location or through a telnet session.
While the POP protocol is most common, the IMAP protocol is another option.
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You have several options if you want to use your Lehman email account off campus. You always have the option of using telnet provided your off- campus computer has a connection to the Internet. It will work exactly as it does on campus and you will have access to all the same mail.
Use of an email client program off-campus also requires an Internet connection. With the exception of those of you on AOL, you can almost always retrieve new mail sent to your Lehman address by configuring your email client software with the appropriate POP (incoming) server and POP account. However, you will not be able to use Lehman's SMTP service for sending mail to non-CUNY addresses from an off-campus location.
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Electronic mail addressed to a Lehman email account may be automatically resent or "forwarded" to another email address. For example, you may prefer to have your Lehman email forwarded to your personal AOL, Hotmail or AT&T WorldNet account. To manage mail forwarding, connect to the Alpha through telnet and type the following command at the $ prompt:
mailforward followed by the Enter key.
Through a series of prompts accompanied by instructions, you can initiate, check, change or terminate mail forwarding. Remember to use the mailforward command to update your settings if you change your preferred email address or wish to stop mail forwarding.
The mailforward facility can only check if the format of the address you provide conforms to Internet standards. It cannot tell if the address is a working address. It is a good idea to verify that your mail is being correctly forwarded as soon as possible. The mailforward command immediately forwards mail. Copies are not maintained on the Lehman email server and you will not be able to retrieve mail from the Lehman server while mail forwarding is in effect. Also, since your email is being forwarded from you Lehman account, replies will go back that account which is normally not what you want to do when you reply to mail. The only way around this problem is to generate a new message to the original sender or "forward" the message to the sender with your reply included.
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The Lehman email system is not web-based. There is no way to check or send email from a webpage. However, some web-based email services such as Hotmail (www.hotmail.com) and Mail2web (www.mail2web.com) will allow you to manage your Lehman email from a webpage. These facilities are not supported by ITR. Refer to the appropriate web page for guidance. If you forward your mail to an address which has a web- based interface (e.g. AOL), you can also check your email that way.
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In the interest of conserving the limited disk space on the Alpha, mail older than four months is deleted from the email server on the first of every month. This does not apply mail downloaded to your own personal computer but only to mail left on the server. This policy affects users who use Telnet mainly and leave mail in the INBOX.
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User Services Help Desk
108 Carman Hall
Information Technology Center
(718) 960 1111
helpdesk@lehman.cuny.edu
The Help Desk distributes handouts on Pine and Logging into the Alpha via telnet.
For information on Eudora: www.eudora.com
For information on Netscape: www.netscape.com
For information on Pine: www.uw.edu
For information on Outlook: www.microsoft.com
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