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To reduce abuse of the network facilties and to reduce 'the proliferation of unmanaged SMTP servers' in Oxford, OUCS are blocking all incoming and outgoing SMTP (tcp port 25) connections from the 5th June 2000.

The compsoc network has been accepted as an approved SMTP server, and as such will be able to continue to send and recieve email for compsoc members.

Accessing Email

Members who read email using pine or mutt on compsoc or on sable or who use herald's web interface do not need to worry about any of the information on this page. Everything will just work for you.

If you run mail software such as Outlook or Netscape Communicator on your computer inside Oxford you will need to set things up as follows:

Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server

Either 'smtp.ox.ac.uk' or 'oxmail.ox.ac.uk' will work. 'smtp.ox.ac.uk' will force you to configure a 'From' address ending in '.ox.ac.uk'. 'oxmail.ox.ac.uk' will allow other 'From' addresses at the moment, but this is not guaranteed to continue.

Incoming mail to me@ox.compsoc.net

Can be collected via a POP3 connection to 'mail.compsoc.net'

Incoming mail to me@ox.ac.uk

Can be collected via an IMAP connection to sable, ermine or herald depending on where your email is delivered. Please read the OUCS email page for more information.

If your computer is not located inside Oxford you will need to configure things as instructed by your own ISP.

Members running email servers

Because of the firewall: individual members will not be able to run SMTP (E-mail) servers that connect to the outside world on their own computers. Therefore if you are running or intend to run an mail server you should read the following carefully.

Incoming Mail: cannot possibly be sent directly to your computer. It must go to an approved mail server, such as compsoc or to herald or sable via the oxmails. You can setup email forwarding to cause these servers to deliver your email to your own mail server, or alternatively you can download mail (as described above) using a protocol like IMAP or POP3.

Outgoing Mail: should be sent through an approved relay (OUCS do not currently block outgoing email but reserve the right to do so from hosts not listed as approved SMTP exceptions, see http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/network/restricted/smtphosts.html, if problems occur). Compsoc will not relay email except by special request. You should be using either 'smtp.ox.ac.uk' or 'oxmail.ox.ac.uk' as your outgoing relay (see the notes above of choice of outgoing mail relay).

Configuring an outgoing mail relay under SENDMAIL. Sendmail calls this a 'Smarthost'. Change the following lines in /etc/sendmail.cf.

# "Smart" relay host (may be null)
DS

# "Smart" relay host (may be null)
DSoxmail.ox.ac.uk

Configuring an outgoing mail relay under EXIM. You must add a new 'router' in /etc/exim.conf. This should be the first router, listed straight after the title saying 'ROUTERS CONFIGURATION'. Add the following lines:

route_append:
  transport = remote_smtp
  driver = domainlist
  route_list = "* oxmail.ox.ac.uk byname"

Configuring an outgoing mail relay under QMAIL. Create a file called "smtproutes" in the qmail control directory (/var/qmail/control by default, /etc/qmail on a Debian system) which contains the line:

:oxmail.ox.ac.uk

I hope some of that waffle is of help, Stephen White 14/5/2000. Questions, queries or requests to support@ox.compsoc.net.