District Office of Information Technology
Network Services and Computer Operations

WEB-MAIL

E-mail is provided for students and staff of the colleges and district.  The system uses Post Office Protocol (POP) and the recommended method for retrieving, reading and sending mail is by the use of a POP client such as Netscape Messenger, Outlook, Eudora, etc. 

Webmail, available through links in the college MySite pages, provides browser interface to the mail server.  It is a convenient way to quickly check and respond to your messages when you are away from your office or computer you normally use to retrieve mail.  It is NOT intended to be used as the primary way to manage your E-mail account.

Here's why.

The volume of messages comming to the colleges and district from the internet and internally is considerable. The disk storage implications to support over 40,000 accounts would be significant if messages were left on the server for any length of time.

POP is a "store and forward" architecture.  E-mail clients connect to the mail server and download the messages from the server your computer each time you check your E-mail.  The client then allows you to view and manipulate the message locally on your computer.  The messages are stored on your computer until you delete them. This changes the role of the server to being a "transfer point" - it only has to store your messages until they are forwarded to your E-mail client.

When you use Web mai you are merely "looking" at your messages while they are still on the server.  The Web software also allows you to do a few basic things on the server such as create folders and to move messages to them from the Inbox, just as you might do with a POP E-mail client  But the messages, ALL of the messages, are left on the server.

While you can delete a message from your Inbox or other folder through Web mail, all that does is move the message to the trash folder on the server.  Also when you send a message through Web mail, the message is placed in your Sent folder on the server.  Everything you do with messages through Web mail is being done on the server.  That's where they stay until something removes them.  We hope that something is you and not a necessary server maintenance event. 

Since disk storage on the server is finite and must hold on to the messages for all users until removed, quotas and message aging affects all accounts to ensure that sufficient space is available to receive new incomming messages.  These quotas act on individual accounts, but are global, meaning all users are treated the same; there are not larger or smaller quotas for some accounts, but not for others.  We can't change that, so don't even ask.

The quotas that affect your account are:

• Total message and storage that will be kept on the server for your account, all folders: 400 or 20 megabytes of disk usage inclusive of all message headers and other attributes added by all Email systems in the process of forwarding the message.
• Messages you leave on the server that are larger than 1MB (including attachments, headers, etc.) will be deleted after 7 days.
• Any message you have read through Web mail is subject to deletion after 30 days, and even sooner if the 20 meg disk quota has been reached; The oldest are the first to be deleted.

Said another way:

If you have...

• More than 400 messages in ALL of the folders you have defined, MESSAGES WILL BE DELETED - The oldest ones first.

If you have...

• More than 20 megabytes of disk storage tied up on the server in all of your folders, MESSAGES WILL BE DELETED - The oldest ones first.

If you have...

• Any messages that are larger than 1MB (including attachments, headers, etc.), THOSE MESSAGES WILL BE DELETED AFTER 7 DAYS - NO EXCEPTIONS.

As any of these quotas are reached, the server will automatically take maintenance action to purge the messages from the global message store.  This protects the mail server operation and ensures enough disk is available for all users.  The expectation is that, if you use Web mail as a primary means of managing E-mail (again, not recommended), you will manage your mail on the server to stay under these limits and transfer the messages from the server using POP Email client software of your choosing for safe keeping.

ABOUT SENDING ATTACHMENTS...

The WEBMAIL interface will allow you to attach files to a message you compose.  However, the limitation on attachments is set to 500K.  This means you can create a small document in something like Microsoft Word or Excel, but if it is larger than 500K you will NOT BE ALLOWED TO SEND IT USING WEBMAIL.

Why?  Because when you create an attachment, it gets uploaded to the server and stored in a special directory where it is associated with the message that is sitting in your sent folder or inbox depending on how you have your webmail configured.  We don't want your attachments cluttering up the server and consuming even more disk space.

If you need to send a larger attachment (up to 10 megabytes) use a POP email client.

Managing your quotas in WebMail.
The only way to prevent unwanted removal of mail by the system is to manage your account by removing messages from the server.  The folders tab in Webmail will tell where you are relative to quotas; disk space used or number of messages.  Messages that you read or send or manage using the Webmail interface are taking up space on the server until you do something to remove them from the server.  There are a couple of ways you can do this.

• If you use WebMail as your primary method of accessing your Email you must aggressively manage your space on the server, remove messages and then EMPTY THE TRASH .  You can set your options to empty the trash on logout, or from the Folders tab click the Empty the Trash button.  EMPTYing the trash folder removes the messages permanently from the server.  They will not be retrieved by a POP client (because they've been removed from the server).  Alternate options for marking messages in-place for deletion, and "expunging" messages are also available, but you must still remove them from the server either way.
• If you use a POP client (recommended) don't move messages from your Inbox using Webmail, but use your POP client at the first opportunity to retrieve your mail, and store it permanently on your computer.  Remember, messages that you move to other folders through Webmail will NOT be retrieved by a POP client and are subject to automatic deletion by the system.

A word of caution about taking vacation....

• IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE GONE FOR AN EXTENDED PERIOD and will not be transfering your messages off of the server with a POP client, you may want to consider setting up a FORWARDING address to an off-site or alternate account such as your ISP mail account.  A copy of any messages received on our mail server will be forwarded to that account.

Remember: Webmail is provided as a convenience.  Email in this district assumes POP Email client software, and NOT relying on the district servers to keep your messages.  Responsibility for permanent Email management and message retention is the user's.  The district makes no warranties expresssed or implied for the protection, retention or restoration of Electronic mail deleted as a consequence of exceeded quotas and aging, server failure that results in the loss of  messages contained on the servers at the time of the failure, absense including vacation, or direct user action to delete such messages.