Using email
• Messages sent from machine to machine
and stored for later reading.
• You will use a client to read email:
– Type mail or pine in UNIX to read email.
– Use programs like Outlook on Windows.
• Different mail servers use the same
protocols to communicate with each other.
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Mail Servers
• SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) transfers
mail between servers.
• The mail server runs a program (daemon) that
listens for clients connecting so people can read or
write mail.
• On UNIX this program is called sendmail.
• A single protocol helps to ensure that different
servers can communicate with each other.
2
Mail Clients
• POP -- Post Office Protocol
– Downloads all mail at once.
– IMAP -- Interactive Mail Access Protocol, adds
features to POP
• Some Clients
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ELM
PINE (PINE Is Not Elm)
Outlook
Eudora
Netscape Mailer
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Parts of an Email
• Body -- This is the actual message.
• Header -- information at the top of the message.
– From: or Received: who sent the mail.
– To: Where the mail goes.
– Cc: Other people who will receive this mail.
• Bcc: Blind carbon copy -- a list of people who get a copy of
the message but don’t get listed.
– Subject: What the mail is about.
– Date: When the mail was sent.
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The mail command
• You can use the mail command in several ways:
– mail -- by itself, it opens your messages and lets you
read them
– mail person@address -- lets you compose a message to
someone at a certain address.
– mail -s (subject) person@address -- lets you send a
message to someone at an address, with a certain
subject.
– mail -s (subject) person@address < text_file -- lets
you send a message to someone with text_file as the
body of the email.
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Using mail
• When you are writing the mail message
body, use ^D or <enter> . <enter> to end
editing and send the message.
• If cc: shows up, this is a list of other
addresses you can enter if you wish to send
a message to other people.
• ^C will kill a mail message you are typing.
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Mail commands
• These commands are used at the & prompt
– q -- quit and save
– x -- quit without making any changes.
– R or r -- reply to a message (r = senders and
recipients, R = senders only.)
– f <numbers> -- view the message headers.
– p or t <numbers> -- show those messages
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More mail commands
• d <numbers> -- delete messages.
• u <numbers> -- undelete messages.
• s <numbers> <file> -- append the messages
to <file> with headers.
• w <numbers> <file> -- append messages to
<file> -- message only.
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Message Editing Commands
• Use these while writing the actual message
– ~r <file> -- Add a file into the message.
– ~f <num> -- add another email into the
message (forwarding).
– ~w <file> -- write the message to a file.
– ~q -- quit without saving
– ~p -- print the contents of the message.
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Header Editing
• While editing a message you may use…
• ~h -- lets you edit the header (to, subject,
cc, bcc)
• These may also work:
–
–
–
–
~s
~t
~c
~b
-- edit the subject.
-- edit the to list.
-- edit the cc (carbon copy) list.
-- edit the bcc (blind carbon copy) list.
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Other Features
• alias -- combine addresses
- alias me johna@wam.umd.edu
jra@math.umd.edu
• .forward file – send mailto another address.
– Forward to self to get a copy on the sending
machine.
• Listservs -- automatic mailing lists.
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PINE
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A menu-driven client
Uses pico as an editor
Allows MIME attachments
Main Menu
– C - Compose to write a message
– I or L - View messages
– Q - Quit
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MIME Attachments
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Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension
Add pictures, files to emails
Can be dangerous with executables.
Pine uses MIME instead of plain inclusion.
Filename on attachment line when writing.
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