webmail On the Central server of the ZIH

[Webmail] +++ [SSL Certificate] +++ [Handling Advices] +++ [Edit E-Mails] +++ [Settings] +++ [Encryption] +++ [Filter (Forwarding, Absence, Whitelist, Blacklist)] +++  [Spamfilter] +++ [Adressbuch] +++ [Kalender] +++ [FAQ]

Webmail

User without an e-mail client application have the opportunity to use a web interface to edit their e-mails, the Webmailer, provided by the TUD ZIH.

The advantage of this solution is ubiquitous accessiblity. The Webmailer provides the following features:

• read, send, filter and archive e-mails
• edit spam filters
• address book
• send out-of-office notices (vacation, business trips and so on)
• automatic e-mail forwarding
  
• calendar
  
• assignment list
• Bereich für Notitzen

Another advantage is (in opposite to an usual e-mail client) that the ZIH takes over presettings and support.

The webaddress is:

https://mail.zih.tu-dresden.de  

Firstly you have to accept a certificate (communication with the program occurs encrypted). Now login with login name and password. The certifivate is already preinstalled in modern browsers. For older browsers, find it here. This avoids a certificate warning while invoking the Webmailer.
The certificate fingerprints (necessary for SSL certification):
SHA1-Fingerprint: AA:CC:71:EC:8B:DC:EF:EB:C7:A7:5F:1F:6D:65:60:99:4D:2D:4E:46
MD5-Fingerprint:
FD:2E:F9:54:C3:DE:0C:71:E6:68:2F:50:6F:16:FF:61

Hints for the folder hierarchy:

• webmail stores a copy of every sent message in sent-mail
• drafts (uncompleted e-mails) in saved-messages
• you can create new folders in order to store your messages the way you like. es können nach Wunsch neue Ordner erstellt werden um die eingegangenen Mails nach eigenen Vorstellungen einsortieren zu können

The following settings have been predefined by the ZIH. You can change them if you want:

Handling advices

Basics

Webmail is a part of the whole working environment. The invironment is called 'Horde'. The web interface is devided in the Horde menu on the left and icons of the current application on the top (e.g. Webmail, Address Book). The head menu is used to handle the application. To change the application, use the left menu bar.

Every application (Horde, Webmail, Address Book) has it's specific preferences and custom settings. They are listet under Options on the left.

Step by step

• First, login
• A maintenance window may appear, where you can choose assignments to be executed automatically by Webmail. By default e-mails will be stored in a month-year-folder once a month.
• After that, another window will appear to refer to new e-mails in the inbox. Confirm or go to Mail-->Inbox. This is the folder where new messages are stored in.
  
• The Horde window is the standard user interface. You can change to the Webmail interface in the menu on the left or customize or change your homepage.
  
• In the head menu are icons for the most important features (filter, address book, logout, etc.)
• In the right upper corner you can change to another folder (e.g. to view copies of old e-mails)
• Under the icon list - grey highlighted - you can find information about your last login and your memory quota
• The proper folder window (in this case: inbox) offers a variety of control elements. They refer to chosen (checked) messages.
• Those e-mails are dyed in order to ease the usability.

Mails

Read

Just click on the e-mail.

Write

Choose New Message.

Reply

First click on the message and then on Reply on the top.

Weiterleiten

First open the e-mail and click on Forward. To send the unchanged message to somebody else, click on Redirect.

Sort

Check a message and choose a folder under Message to. Before that, you can also create a new folder under Folders in the head menu (and Choose Action-->Create Folder). Now Click on Move or Copy.

Delete

Check a message and click on Delete. Keep in mind: you can restore deleted messages. If you want to erase the message completely, check a message and choose Purge Deleted.

Options

Via Options you can customise your presettings. Besides personal settings and settings if individual folders, it also provides several opportunities to ease the Webmail handling.
In the Global Options window you find Personal Information to manage several identities, which allows you to send e-mails from different addresses and use different personal signatures. In the upper drop down menu select and change identities and choose a standard identity. Futher customisations like layout settings are also located in the Horde settings. Under DisplayOptions you can expand the width of the left menu to read longer descriptions.

Digital Signature / Encryption

Furthermore, you can activate the user setting S/MIME which allows you to encrypt and/or digitally sign your messages. Encryption ensures that only the receiver is able to read the content of a message and a digital signature ensures the integrity of the sender. Both techniques in combination are suitable to detect message manipulation. Since this setting is active, you can import your perosnal S/MIME keys, read encrypted e-mails, check digital signed e-mails and encrypt/sign outgoing messages by yourself.

Certificates can be applied for online at the user advice service. After validating your identity with a passport, you will get an e-mail with all further steps. First you have to accept all necessary certificates in order to be able to finally accept your personal certificate. Before you can import this certificate in your browser you have to export it as a PKCS12-file. Now you can import it in Webmail under Mail-->Options-->S/MIME Options. Keep in mind to not forget the passwords. In Firefox go to Option-->Options-->Advanced-->View Certificates. Here you can import your own certificate and afterwards in webmail, too. Now, when you write a new e-mail, you can apply encryption, signature or both to the message (in the select box under the text field). To be able to encrypt an e-mail you need the public key of the receiver. If the receiver himself does not have a personal user certificate, you cannot send him an encrypted e-mail.

Filter

Please focus upon Filter under Mail. Here you can find presetted filters.

Whitelist: All listed e-mail addresses must not be filtered by the system. You can register addresses that are definitely no spam. * is a place holder affords to assign whole address areas as  positiv. 50 entries are maximum.
examples:
MeineMama@gmx.de
*tu-dresden.de

Blacklist: List of addresses, which are not supposed to get into the inbox (e.g. spam). Here, too, are 50 entries maximum.

SPAM-Filter: By default, ad-mails are filtered that have been given a 5 star spam ranking. One can add more personal spam criteria, to raise the spam deletion efficiency. Find more advices here .
Forwarding: Here you can configure, which incoming messages should be forwarded and/or stay in the inbox.
Out-Of-Office: By default, this feature is deactivated. If active, incoming e-mails will be replied with a automatic 'notice of absence'.

Open your list of filter rules by clicking on Mail-->Filters. Click on Vacation in order to configure your notice of absence.

Fill in all e-amil addresses, your inbox is available with (mail alias) as well as the reply text according to the "Mitteilung des Rektors 2/2011" ein.

Now Save, Return to Rules List and click to enable the notice of absence.

In general you can add further own filter rule. In opposite to the old Webmail, filters will be applied only to incoming e-mails, without the need to  apply them manually. If you want to apply filters subsequently, you can use the search function to find older messages.

Spamfilter

Spamfilter - Aktivierung

The ZIH provides a spam filter. If you want  ad-mails to be filtered, you have to customize the filter in Webmail under Mail-->Filters-->Spamfilter. It is adaequate to set the X-TUD-Spam Level to 5 stars (which is the default value).  Suitable values are between 2 and 7. With 2, most e-mails will be labelled as spam, on level 7 less messages will be filtered. Keep in mind, that in some cases normal meassages could be declarated as spam. You can access all filtered messages in the folder +spamverdacht.

Address book

A simple address book is also provided by Webmail. It is able to import extern address books in the CSV format (comma-seperated values) or other common formats. Any current e-mail client (and Webmail as well) should be able to export those data types. Find the address book under Mail-->Address Book.

If you want to outline several e-mail addresses under one name, you can use the function List: first select contacts from your address book. Decide where the list is being created under Add to a contact list. If a new e-mail is created you are able to add the list as a receiver. All the addresses are then visible for all receives.

calender

The calendar is another Webmail feature. Here you can add events and appointments. These data can also be importet and exportet as iCal or CSV files. Thus you can use your data from the old Webmail and include them in a recent version.

FAQ

Here are some frequently asked questions and there solutions:

Question: How can I import e-mail folders or individual e-mails from my local e-mail client into Webmail?
Answer: Go to Mail-->Folders, select a folder and choose Import Messages from the option box.

Question: My draft is not in the folder saved-messages.

Answer: Unfortunately there is no error message for problems during the Save Draft command. If you tried to save an important draft, please check the saved-messages folder before you close the draft.