Using Internet Email at DCCCD

Having seen many errors arriving at our GroupWise gateway to Internet, both inbound and outbound, it appears that there are some misconceptions that need to be clarified. In addition, there are some features of which some users are not aware that might be of help. I'd like to try to address these issues here. This information is also helpful for new employees who have not grown up with GroupWise email.

Outbound Addressing

Note: The need to use the INET:" " form pertains to GroupWise 4.1a only

When sending a message to an address on the Internet it's necessary to specify a route to Internet. Generally the person to whom you're sending has an address of the form

account@somewhere.site.net

where "somewhere.site.net" represents the location of their mail system and "account" is what identifies them as and individual on the system. This is what you enter in the To: field in your GroupWise message. But since the address is outside of our system we have to route it to the gateway that communicates with Internet mail systems. For this reason you must preface the address with the text INET: and enclose the address above within double quotes (the quotes are not absolutely necessary but they help cut down on potential confusion.) Your outbound address should look something like

INET:"account@somewhere.site.net"

where you provide the actual address inside the quotes.

If you receive a message from someone outside of District and simply use the reply option to respond to them, their full address is automatically included in the To: field and doesn't need to be changed. If the format of an address looks strange to you when you do a Reply, don't be concerned. GroupWise knows what it's doing.

Inbound Addressing

By virtue of having an account under GroupWise at DCCCD other people can reach you through Internet email. By default your address is your user ID under GroupWise followed by the @' character and then our site, dcccd.edu . So your address should look something like the following:

abc1234@dcccd.edu

where "abc1234" represents your user ID. The upper/lower case of the characters doesn't matter. There are some alternatives to this form of address though. Everyone in the GroupWise system also has what is known as a nickname. This has been preset to be your first and last name. If your name is Sam Houston then your nickname is also Sam Houston. If an Internet correspondent wanted to send a message to you they could send it to

Sam_Houston@dcccd.edu

where the blank between the first and last name is replaced by the underscore character, _'.

You also have the option of requesting an Internet alias from the GroupWise administrator. The alias is a designation of your choosing (with some restrictions) that can be used to make your address a little easier for your correspondents to remember. This is typically, though not necessarily, your first initial followed by your last name. When you send a message out through Internet your recipients will see your alias as your address. If you don't have an alias they will see your account instead. Aliases can be up to 40 characters long (but not recommended.)

When requesting an alias to be established it's imperative that you unsubscribe to any Internet mailing lists to which you might be subscribed before the alias is applied and, if possible, receive verification that you have been unsubscribed. Because an alias effectively changes the ID under which you're known to the Internet community it would be impossible to unsubscibe to a mailing list that only recognizes your account address without a lot of shuffling of IDs and timing considerations. Having an alias does not invalidate the nickname or account address but it does change your address on outbound mail while adding another indentifier for inbound mail.

The following are limitations we impose on alias requests:

	No first or last names only unless they are so unusual that they are not likely to be shared by other users on the system.
	No derogatory terms.
	First come, first serve on names. In any large organization you are likely to have several names like "jsmith". It's highly recommended where there is likely to be such a conflict that you consider using a longer form of your first name instead of just your intials.
	No embedded spaces. Although this is allowed it may create some difficulty for the people trying to address you.

Typical addressing problems:

One of the notable problems with inbound messages appears to stem from the way the address was given to the correspondent. Frequently messages arrive here with the string "INET:" embedded in them. It seems that some users assume that what we use for routing to Internet is part of their address too. This is not the case. The INET: and the quotes around the address are necessary only to get our outbound messages started in the right direction.

Another problem has been messages coming in with addresses of the form

abc1234.bhc1@dcccd.edu

where ".bhc1" is an example of a post office designation. This form of address was dropped in January of 1995 when we phased out the older, less direct Internet mail gateway. The newer system allowed us to shorten the address considerably. Older training material may still have the old form of addressing. It is no longer valid.

Other Problem Areas

As our access to Internet expanded to what is popularly called The Web we were introduced to other applications that gave us the ability to send mail to Internet without having to jump over to GroupWise to do so. For example, Web sites frequently have fields that a user can click on to send mail to the site's author from our Web browser. This let's you send mail without having to copy down an address and go into GroupWise to send the message. There are two things here that reflect on your regular mail system.

In order for your browser to send the message to Internet it must do so through a forwarding agent. In other words, an Internet mail server that will accept the message on your behalf and relay it to its destination. But for this to work your Web browser needs to be configured to point to the server at DCCCD that will do this forwarding for you. In your preferences or options under the heading of Mail you should find a field for entering your outbound SMTP server. This should be ns.dcccd.edu . If you're not certain about how to set this, please contact your campus data center. A known problem involves those who put dcccd.edu" in this field instead of ns.dcccd.edu. This has the effect of routing messages to the GroupWise mail system which does NOT act as a forwarding agent.

The second component of using browser mail facilities requires that you record your own GroupWise address in the configuration to identify you to whomever you're sending a message. This needs to be your full Internet address in the form of

abc1234@dcccd.edu

or your alias, including the dcccd.edu If your Netscape installation supplies the dcccd.edu portion in the appropriate field. It shows up as something like

[your email account or alias]@dcccd.edu

It's your responsibility to replace the [your email account or alias] portion with either your GroupWise user ID or your alias if you have one. If this is not filled in with your address the person you're sending to will not have your return address. The brackets are not part of the addresses and should not be entered. There is also a field for filling in your full name. In addition to Web browsers, other Web software, such as news readers, may require that you enter the same type of information in their configuration.

Another problem that has been happening more and more frequently regards people who have done things during training sessions that leave an ongoing series of messages that bounce at our Internet gateway. Sometimes, just for practice, someone will put in a name that is made up on the spot and tries to subscribe to a list. As such the list tries to send messages to an address that doesn't exist. It's very difficult to get list owners and postmasters to remove these entries. For that reason we ask that you kindly avoid the following:

	Subscribing to mailing lists though the mail facilities provided by Web browsers and news readers. Always use the regular GroupWise system when subscribing to mailing lists.
	Guessing at your email address. Don't assume that you have an alias. Know your account ID and/or your alias. Your account ID is generally the same as your network login ID. If you're uncertain as to whether or not you have an alias you can check the email address lookup function on DCCCD's Web page (http://www.dcccd.edu). It provides the email address of almost everyone in District and displays the alias if one is assigned.
	Guessing at someone else's email address when using such Web facilities as greeting card mailers or service subscriptions. Wrong addresses result in incoming messages that get bounced back to the original sender.
	Including INET:" " as part of your address when giving your email address to a correspondent on another email system on the Internet. This is an external routing designation and is only used to get messages from within GroupWise out to the Internet.

We humbly request that if and when you leave the employ of DCCCD that you unsubscribe from any Internet mailing lists to which you may have been subscribed.

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Questions or problems regarding this web site should be directed to tdewberry@dcccd.edu.
Last modified: Wednesday April 02, 2003.