Care and Feeding of Your E-mail Alias

Here are some steps to make the e-mail aliasing process simple and complete. Your e-mail alias, which is your username@montana.edu, is generated automatically if you have an account on any ITC-managed host.

All examples below use a username and an alias of mmouse and a mail host of gemini. Remember to substitute your own username, alias, and host.

Step 1.

Make sure your alias has been established and is sending your mail to the correct host. The way to check is with the finger command from a UNIX or VMS host.

   $ finger mmouse@mail1.msu.montana.edu
   [mail1.msu.montana.edu]
   Aliased-to: mmouse@gemini.oscs.montana.edu

Step 2.

Make sure if you are using a PC-based POP mail client (Netscape, Eudora, etc.) that you enter your new aliased address (mmouse@montana.edu) as your E-mail and/or Reply-To address. This causes the alias to be used in your message headers on outgoing mail from your SMTP server and message recipients will see this as your address. You may use mixed case to change the appearance of your address to the recipient (i.e. MMouse@montana.edu).

Step 3.

If you ever use any MX-based product (VMS Mail, PathWorks Mail, or DECwindows Mail) define the following logical in your login.com file. This causes the alias to be used in your message headers for outgoing mail from MX via SMTP.

   $ define MX_REPLY_TO "mmouse@montana.edu"

   or

   $ define MX_REPLY_TO "MMouse@montana.edu"

Step 4.

Modify any local mail forwarding that you have to reference the new alias. This would include SET FORWARD in VMS Mail, and the .forward file on UNIX. This step is optional, but if you do this then you can reroute mail to a new server simply by changing your alias. If you are receiving a heavy volume of locally sent mail you may want to set the forwarding directly to your e-mail host to avoid the extra hop, but this is usually not an issue.

   VMS Forwarding

      $ MAIL
      MAIL> SET FORWARD "MX%""mmouse@montana.edu"""
      MAIL> EXIT

   UNIX Forwarding

      % cat > .forward
      mmouse@montana.edu
      

In a few days, after the WHEREIS database has been updated, you can and should check your forwarding by running WHEREIS on any VMS node.

   $ WHEREIS/FORWARD U=mmouse

Step 5.

Send your new e-mail address to Marilyn Heitz (mheitz@montana.edu) so that it can updated on the Web directory and in the MSU telephone book. We use these addresses as the official addresses for distribution lists, so please don't skip this step.

Step 6.

Remember to update any signature files that are in use with MX or your POP mailer.

Step 7.

Send yourself some test mail and enjoy your new alias!

Help

Please contact Allen Porter (ahporter@montana.edu) for additional assistance.

Updated April 4, 2002