How to register on the Rhodes IMAP mail server

If you are receiving your mail on a server other than the IMAP server, for example hippo, kudu, warthog or giraffe, and your email address is of the form abcd@kudu.ru.ac.za or wxyz@giraffe.ru.ac.za, then there are several things that need to be done in order to register on the IMAP server and have an aliased email address of the form A.Nother@ru.ac.za.

The first step is to contact the IT Division in Struben Building in person in order to complete a registration form and obtain a printout containing your registration details.

For the purpose of this description, assume your name is Joanne Smith, and that you have been receiving email at the address pajs@kudu.ru.ac.za. It is immediately apparent that a mail alias of J.Smith@ru.ac.za will be problematic - not only for you, but for other J Smiths at Rhodes who are already receiving email or may do so in future. For these cases, a second initial will be used in creating the alias -- but usually a single initial is sufficient to produce a unique alias.

So, if your full name is Joanne Elizabeth Smith, your aliased email address would be J.E.Smith@ru.ac.za, while the login or username remains as "pajs".

Once these details have been sorted out and it has been established there are no clashes with existing aliases and that there are unlikely to be clashes with future aliases, the registration process is carried out. The result is a printed form which contains a description of the allocated user or login name, the password, and various server settings that need to be configured in the mail client software on your PC.

As far as the registration is concerned, that's it. But please note that you will no longer receive email in your old mailbox. For this reason it is essential that you change the configurations of your mail client as soon as possible - or arrange for someone to help you change them according to the information in the printed registration form.

Support personnel in the IT Division are not obligated to do the configuration or software installations for dialup users, but will be happy to give advice as to what needs to be done.