Configuring Netscape

These directions are outdated with respect to sending mail. Please talk to Oliver.

In order to configure Netscape to connect securely (ie. without cleartext passwords) to the new electron mail server, you have to use IMAP instead of POP. This is because netscape does not support POP over SSL.

IMAP is very similar to POP, and is simple and easy to use. The only difference you will see is that you'll have separate inbox folders showing up in the netscape mail window: one on you local machine and one on electron. This leaves you the option of leaving your messages on the server and reading them from there, or copying them to your local mail folder by dragging and dropping.

Setting it up

Open the netscape mail window, and go to /Edit/Preferences, open the "Mail & Newsgroups" branch of the tree, and click on "Mail Severs". This should bring up a window like the one below:

You will want to enter electron.mit.edu as the Outgoing mail server, and you will enter your username below. Below this you should select "Use SSL for outgoing messages" as "If Possible".

You should then delete any old Incoming Mail Sever entries you had for electron and click on add to add a new one. You should then enter "electron.mit.edu" for the server name, select IMAP as the server type and enter your username:

Then click on the IMAP tab and Click on the "Use secure connection (SSL)" box:

Click on OK and you are done!

Using IMAP for mail

Once you have finished the above steps, you mail window should look something like this: (Note: "100.1.1.26" will be replaced with "electron.mit.edu" for your case.)

You now have two inboxes showing: one for the messages you have saved to your local machine, and one that shows the messages that are in your remote inbox on electron. You can read and display messages in either by simply clicking on the message.

You can copy messages from the remote server to you local inbox by dragging and dropping them. You can delete them from the remote server simply by clicking on them and pressing the delete key.

Whether you decide to leave them on the server or not is really up to you. Personally, when checking my mail from home, I would be inclined to just leave them on the server, and then pick them up to my inbox on my computer at work from our local LAN using POP.