Appendix II: Server E-Mail Forwarding
A. VMS Mail Forwarding
Every Web page should have an E-mail link for comments or suggestions. In order to avoid having to revise every Web page on your department's site when you go on vacation or pagemaster responsibility is re-assigned, you should have that E-mail link go to your department's account on the Front Door server, and then set forwarding on that account, as described here, for delivery to your own E-mail address.
We expect that most people will want to use their regular E-mail environment. In that case, you would set VMS Mail on CSCWWW to autoforward all messages to your regular E-mail address. To do this, you need only use the few commands listed below (substituting your own E-mail address for the one used here!).
If further experience demonstrates that you have unusually burdensome levels of E-mail traffic arising from your Web page, and you do not want to have your Web site E-mail mingled with your personal E-mail, you can later on use one of the IMAP clients that are IMSP-capable: Mulberry, Execmail, or Simeon, and set up a shared inbox folder.
For now, start by using telnet to login to CSCWWW as described in Chapter II, reaching the "$" operating system prompt. Next, start the VMS MAIL program and set the forwarding, as shown below:
MAIL> SHOW FORWARD
You have not set a forwarding address.
MAIL> SET FORWARD MX%"USERNAME@OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU"
MAIL> SHOW FORWARD
Your mail is being forwarded to MX%"USERNAME@OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU".
MAIL> EXIT
$
The "MX%" and all the quotes are required to be included as shown. There is no leading underscore character ("_") preceding the "MX%" on internet addresses. If at some later time you want to cancel the autoforwarding, use the command, "SET NOFORWARD" at the "MAIL>" prompt. If you want to re-direct the mail to a different address, just give the "SET FORWARD" command again, but with the appropriate new E-mail address. To learn about other features of VMS Mail, you can use the "HELP" command at the "MAIL>" prompt.
There are other forms of E-mail addresses you could set forward to, that would usually work, to reach some E-mail addresses on campus. Unfortunately, they can fail invisibly, leaving the mail message in VMS Mail on CSCWWW, if the target E-mail server is down for service or backups at the time the message arrives and needs to be forwarded. The Internet form, shown above, will work even at such times: the MX software holds the message and keeps re-trying until it gets through.
Return to Appendix II Table ofContents
Dick Piccard revised this file (http://www.ohiou.edu/pagemasters/memo85/append2.html) on November 20, 2000.
Please E-Mail comments or suggestions to "acatec@www.ohiou.edu".