Reading Your e-Mail When You Are Away From Bilkent

The easiest way to read your mail when you are away from Bilkent is using the Bilkent WEB-Mail Services. With this service, you can use any web browser, on any computer to read your Bilkent mail and answer them. Please note that this service is much slower and cumbersome compared to using regular mail clients. Actually this service is designed and implemented for those Bilkenters who are away for a short term and do not have a permanent computer to setup a mail client.

If you shall be away for a long time, it might be a better idea to set your mail client to your Bilkent account; or better still, forwarding your Bilkent mails to your local account till you come back to Bilkent.

This page provides information on how to fetch your e-mail in your Bilkent account.

We assume that you have some sort of an Internet connection, such as an account at a different university, an account at a commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP). Well, since you can read these, our assumption is correct :)

Here are some important notes on accessing mail services on Bilkent host(s) (these only apply if you are reaching Bilkent from a different network) :

• You will not be able to telnet to your favorite host at Bilkent from a non-Bilkent network;
• You will not be able to send mail using your Bilkent account,

To fetch the mail in your Bilkent mailbox you should

1. Either use a POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) mail client software (installed on your desktop computer);
2. or enable automatic forwarding of all incoming mail to your new account.

Typical POP3 Mail Clients

Typical examples to POP3 mail client software are the EUDORA, Microsoft Internet Mail (some versions are built in to the Microsoft Exchange clients software) and the mail module of the Netscape browser.

Regardsless of the type of the POP3 mail client you use, you have to go through certain setup procedures to tune your client to the mail services provided by Bilkent University.

The POP3 service has 2 components :

• Providing access to incoming mail (lets you fetch and read those messages which have arrived to your e-mail address),
• Providing services for outgoing mail (lets you send messages around using your mail account in a network; even if you are not in that network)

Bilkent hosts will ONLY allow you to fetch your incoming mail. i.e you will not be able to send out mail even when you tell your mail client that the SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) host is smtphost.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr. If you need to send out mail from the network you are in, you should use the mail services provided by that network.

You should take these points into consideration while setting up your POP3 client software.

All POP3 clients will need to know

• your account name,
• password,
• the Bilkent POP3 Host
• and the Bilkent SMTP host.

If your account is in one of CS, FEN or CTP domains, we suggest that you contact the system administrator(s) of the relevant domain to learn the pop3 and smtp hosts for the domain in question.

If you need a good source for free POP3 mail client software, you can check the site of TUCOWS in Turkey and USA.

Screen shots of sample Netscape Communicator 4.3 and EUDORA POP3 setups are given below :
Most POP3 mail client software have similar boxes for you to fill in. You usually bring up these setup boxes by selecting a menu item like File-Setup, Edit-Setup, Edit-Preferences, File-Preferences, Edit-Options. Please check any online help or other documentation of your mail client for details. (Searching on the keywords "setup" & "servers" might be a good start).

Sample POP3 settings for Netscape Communicator V4.3

Sample POP3 settings for EUDORA

Enabling Automatic Forwarding of Mail

This technique is the simplest if you are an elm or pine fan.

All you have to do is to create a file called ".forward" (Please note the dot which is the first character of the file name) in your home directory (UNIX home directory) and put your new e-mail address as the only line in this file. All mail arriving to your Bilkent e-mail address from then onwards will be forwarded to the new address you have specified. In case you enable automatic mail forwarding temporarily; you should remember to delete the file when you come back to Bilkent; or better still, before you leave your temporary location.

The catch with this technique is that, you will not be able to telnet to any Bilkent host once you leave and therefore it will not be easy for you to put a new file (the .forward file) into your home directory. Our systems administrators will help you in this matter if you send an e-mail to hotline@bilkent.edu.tr with some sort of proof that it is you who has made the request.

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