CS 1320 (Principles of Algorithm Design I):
Reading and Forwarding Mail Under Unix

Note: This document is current as of March 17, 2000; much has changed since the previous version of these instructions. The new instructions apply to the machines named Janus01, 02, etc., and Xena01, 02, etc. They do not apply to the machines named Atlas01, etc.

If you submit your programs by mailing source code from your CS Unix account, you will usually get some sort of response via e-mail (either a reply from the cs1320-1 account or a message from the mail daemon telling you about a problem such as a mistyped address). This e-mail will be routed back to your CS account, however, which means that you either need to forward it to another account or read it using a Unix mail-reading program.

Forwarding mail under Unix

We prefer that you forward mail from your CS account to the address where you normally read mail (for most of you, your TUCC account). To do this, create a text file called .forward in your home directory containing the address to which you want mail forwarded. For example, if you want mail forwarded to your TUCC account, this file should contain the single line of text yourname@trinity.edu. (To create a text file, use your favorite text editor, e.g., the one you use to write your program source. Recall/note that files beginning with a "." do not normally appear in a Unix directory listing (as produced by the command ls). To see all files, including those beginning with a ".", use the command ls -a.)

To check that forwarding is working properly, try sending a test message from some other account -- your TUCC account, for example -- to yourname@cs.trinity.edu. The test message should arrive at the address to which you've forwarded your CS mail within a few minutes (assuming there are no network problems); if it does not, something is probably wrong, and you should review the instructions and/or ask for help.

Reading mail under Unix

If you do not forward mail from your CS account, you will need to log into the department mail server in order to read it. This is possible, but strongly discouraged; contact your instructor for information on how to do it.

Special instructions for Atlasxx machines

On these machines, forwarding still does not work, and responses to any mail you send from the machine still comes back to the same machine, where you can read it with a Unix mail program such as elm.