How to Use Email
Our mail server supports many ways to access your mail. Here we document how to use the mail system.
Web based Mail Client
Simple access to your mail from any web browser
How to use E-Mail with IMAP
IMAP is the preferred method to read mail. Most mail clients even synchronize mail folders for offline use when you don't have an internet connection.
We recommend the following mail clients:
These are older mail clients where we keep the documentation just for reference:
Encrypted Connection
Note that modern email clients automatically choose SSL so you might not need to do any of the following.
Searching the ETH LDAP directory
ETH Zurich offers a LDAP directory with all employees and students. Follow these instructions to add this directory to your mailclient:
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
General Hints for configuring your mailclient
- Try to enable SSL / TLS – this will encrypt the connection between you and the mail server
/var/mailon any of our Linux workstations are just local spool files, your incoming mailbox is not there – use IMAP or go directly with ssh to imap.phys.ethz.ch.- Send us hints and screenshots if you are using a mailclient, which is not yet described on this page
Technical Details
Advanced users prefer technical details:
| Hostname | Protocol | Port | Notes |
| webmail.phys.ethz.ch | Webmail over HTTPS | 443 | HTTP over SSL, always encrypted |
| mail.phys.ethz.ch | SMTP | 25, 587 | TLS available; port 587 is the submission port for use when e.g. ports 25 or 465 are blocked |
| mail.phys.ethz.ch | SMTPS | 465 | SMTP over SSL, always encrypted |
| imap.phys.ethz.ch | IMAP | 143 | TLS available, IMAPv4 |
| imap.phys.ethz.ch | IMAPS | 993 | IMAP over SSL, always encrypted |
| pop.phys.ethz.ch | POP3 | 110 | TLS available |
| pop.phys.ethz.ch | POP3S | 995 | POP3 over SSL, always encrypted |
| imap.phys.ethz.ch | ssh | 22 | Always encrypted; for local IMAP use (/etc/rimapd) with e.g. mutt or pine, or for IMAP over SSH with remote pine and mutt (use /etc/rimapd and SSH keys) |
Virus detection
Every mail which goes through our mailserver must pass a virus checker. It cannot catch every virus especially new ones, but most of the old ones are kept back. The virus signatures are updated every few hours.
Spamfilters
Every locally delivered mail must pass a spamfilter. Read more about it on our original news posting from June 4, 2002. In the mean time we have introduced greylisting and continously upgraded the SpamAssassin setup but we are still using it. Individual users can adjust their personal SpamAssassin configuration using the file $HOME/.spamassassin/user_prefs . The most typical entries are
whitelist_from friend@provider.example.com
and
required_hits 5
More details can be found in the SpamAssassin documentation
