Alpine or Pine

If you run Alpine or Pine on Hermes, or on the MCS computers, then you do not need to change any settings as they are already set up for you.

You need to configure Alpine or Pine with the secure settings described on this page.

Notes:

• If you are using Pine (rather than Alpine) then you need to be using Pine 4.30 or above to configure secure settings. This is available from the Pine Information Centre at the University of Washington.
• Some Linux distributions do not ship with the CyberTrust root certificate that the JANET SSL certificate chain depends on. We recommend that you add the the missing root certificate to the certificate authority bundle. The packages needed on modern Linux versions are listed on this page. If you have compiled Alpine or Pine yourself on Mac OS X you may also find you need to add the certificate.

If you would also like to be able to look up Cambridge email addresses automatically, please see the page on configuring Alpine or Pine to use the University LDAP Directory. Do this after you have set up Alpine or Pine to access Hermes.

Server settings

From the Main Menu, select S (Setup) then C (Config). Select the following items and, in each case, type C (Change Value) and then type the correct setting (see below).

• SMTP Server (in Alpine) smtp-server (in Pine) - smtp.hermes.cam.ac.uk/ssl/user=Your_username
  where Your_username is your CRSId, for example spqr9. Use Return (Enter key) to accept the change.
• Inbox Path (in Alpine) inbox-path (in Pine) - imap.hermes.cam.ac.uk/ssl/user=Your_username
  where Your_username is your CRSId, for example spqr9. Use Return to accept the change, and then Return again to accept the setting inbox. The setting will change to look like this (the example is for user spqr9)
  {imap.hermes.cam.ac.uk/ssl/user=spqr9}inbox

"ssl" is the secure setting which prevents your password passing in plain text across the network and being snooped.

Mail folder settings

~/mail used to be needed to define the path to mail folders on Hermes, but is now obsolete and should be removed from the settings.

• From the Main Menu select S (Setup) then L (collectionLists).
• Select the correct folder collection (the nickname for the collection will vary but the indication is the second line which will start Folders on imap.hermes.cam.ac.uk), then select C (Change).
• If there is anything (~/mail or mail/) in the Path field delete it.
• Use Ctrl-X (Exit/Save) to save the settings then E (Exit Setup).

There may also be settings in the general configuration screen which include an obsolete folder path and which also need to be fixed.

• From the Main Menu select S (Setup) then C (Config).
• Type W (Where is) then "folder" to find the first folder-related setting. Ensure it does not include a ~/mail or mail/ path component.
• Keep typing W then <enter> until you have checked all the folder-related settings.
• Finally, type W fcc <enter> to check the last folder-related setting which happens not to have folder in its name.
• When you have finished, type E to exit the config screen.

Dual use mailboxes and quell-empty-directory setting

Hermes uses dual use mailboxes. A dual use mailbox (or dual use mail folder) is a mailbox which can contain both messages and subsidiary mailboxes. For example, a mailbox M1 might contain within it subsidiary mailboxes named M1/a and M1/b, as well as some individual messages. Pine has some problems with these, in particular tab completion breaks.

• From the Main Menu select S (Setup) then C (Config).
• Type W (Where is), then "Hide Empty" (Alpine) or "quell-empty" (Pine) to find the setting.
• Type X to set the option then E to exit the config screen.

There are still wrinkles - as the internal help text states
Note, enabling this feature can cause surprising behavior! For example, you can still use Add to create a directory, but unless you immediately enter that directory and create a folder, that newly created directory may not be displayed next time you enter the folder list.