Enterprise Technology Services
ETS Help Desk
Electronic Mail (faculty & staff only)
- Aliases
- Configure Cell Phone for E-mail and Calendaring
- Documents, Guides, Instructions
- E-mail Accounts
- E-mail Services
- E-mail Software
- Majordomo Mailing Lists
- New Mailing List Requests
- Phishing
- Policies
- Quota
- Spam
- Virus Information
- Webmail Information
Please review the SDSU Computing Acceptable Use policies before requesting a mail.sdsu.edu account.
Aliases
E-mail aliases are nicknames for e-mail accounts. Individuals may request aliases in the form of firstname.lastname@sdsu.edu. For example, if your e-mail account is jdoe@mail.sdsu.edu, your alias could be john.doe@sdsu.edu. Mail sent to john.doe@sdsu.edu would be delivered to jdoe@mail.sdsu.edu.
Departmental e-mail aliases may point to one or more e-mail accounts. SDSU faculty and staff are eligible to request these. Choose an alias that reflects accounts purpose. Be as specific as possible, avoiding generic names which could be confused with other departments or groups on campus. For example, instead of requesting test@sdsu.edu for your department's test group, request mydept.test@sdsu.edu.
Student organizations may request e-mail accounts on Rohan. Please refer to http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/acinfo.shtml for more information.
E-mail Services
Vacation Messaging
To establish a vacation message, use your Web Browser (e.g. Microsoft Explorer, Mozilla Firefox) to go to webmail.sdsu.edu. Enter your existing username and password. Select “Options” from the upper, right-hand menu bar. Select “Auto-reply”, and complete the fields on the screen.
Change Password
If you know your existing password, to change it, use your Web Browser (e.g. Microsoft Explorer, Mozilla Firefox) to go to webmail.sdsu.edu. Enter your existing username and password. Select “Options” from the upper, right-hand menu bar. Select “Change Password”, and complete the fields on the screen. Select Apply to save your changes. If you do not know your existing password, contact the ETS Help Desk to have it changed for you. You will be required to make your request in person. Please bring your SDSU Red ID with you. The ETS Help Desk is located in LL-200 and is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Forward Messages
To forward mail you receive at mail.sdsu.edu to another account, use your Web Browser (e.g. Microsoft Explorer, Mozilla Firefox) to go to webmail.sdsu.edu. Enter your existing username and password. Select “Options” from the upper, right-hand menu bar. Select “Forwarding”, and complete the fields on the screen. Select Apply to save your changes.
Virus Information
Mail attachments passing through mail.sdsu.edu are scanned for viruses and possible exploits of security vulnerabilities. However, it is very important that you keep a current version of virus scanning software on your desktop computer, and any other computers you use (e.g. at home, other offices). San Diego State University has a site-license for McAfee VirusScan Enterprise. SDSU Students can get this free software at the Student Computing Center in LL-200. SDSU faculty and staff can acquire this software either through their local Technical Contacts or by bringing a blank cd to the ETS Help Desk in LL-200, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Faculty and Staff should first check with their local administrators to make sure they adhere to virus software policies that might be specific to their own departments. Please see the Virus Scanning FAQ for more information.
The IT Security Office (ITSO) reserves the right to deny or revoke e-mail aliases and accounts at any time.
E-mail Accounts
E-mail Accounts on the mail.sdsu.edu server are available to all regular university faculty and staff. Email accounts for employees of the SDSU Foundation, Aztec Shops and other auxiliary organizations, programs and projects, are available through mail servers specific to those areas. Contact your supervisor for more information.
If you are a regular university faculty, or staff, bring your current, valid SDSUcard to the ETS Help Desk in LL-200, open Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. No other form of identification will be accepted. Your card will be scanned, and (in most cases) your account will be created for you while you wait. This typically takes about 5 minutes. If you do not have an SDSUcard, or would like more information about SDSUcard services, click on: SDSUcard.
E-mail Software
Note: Eudora is no longer supported or maintained by the vendor. For that reason, we recommend using Microsoft Entourage, Apple Mail, Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird.
The ETS Help Desk currently supports both POP and IMAP for Eudora, Entourage, Apple Mail, Outlook and Thunderbird.
Microsoft Outlook is included with the Microsoft Office suite. Entourage is included with the Microsoft Office suite for Mac. The university including auxiliary organizations, may obtain a copy for SDSU computers free of charge. Please contact your department for more information. Microsoft Office suite for personal use may be obtained from the SDSU Bookstore at a nominal fee.
Mozilla offers the following products free of charge:
Thunderbird (for Windows and Mac)
The ETS Help Desk offers documentation to help you set up your e-mail software. To view PDF documents, you will need a copy of Adobe Reader.
Documents, Guides, Instructions
Windows 
Format Documentation Title / Subject
Configuring Eudora 7.1 for Windows XP 
Configuring Outlook 2003 for Windows XP
Configuring Outlook 2007 for Windows XP
Configuring Thunderbird for Windows XP
Configuring Windows Mail for Windows Vista
Macintosh 
Format Document Title / Subject
Configuring Eudora 6.2.4 for Mac OS X
Configuring Microsoft Entourage for OS X
Configuring Apple Mail for Mac OS X (Leopard)
Configuring Apple Mail for Mac OS X (Tiger)
Configuring Thunderbird for Mac OS X
For questions, contact the ETS Help Desk at <etshelpdesk@mail.sdsu.edu> or call 619-594-5261, between the hours of 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Configure Cell Phone for E-mail and Calendaring
Apple iPhone and iTouch
Blackberry - Contact BlackBerry vendor for instructions.
Meeting Maker
Palm
WinMobile
Webmail Information
The following document, prepared by the ETS Help Desk, lists current browsers that are certified with Webmail Corporate Edition.
Webmail Supported Browser Information
Webmail/WebCal User Guide
Phishing
Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
SDSU will never ask for a user’s password or other confidential information. You should never follow the instructions in any e-mail that appears to be from SDSU, if it asks for confidential or sensitive information.
Reporting Phishing
If you receive a phishing e-mail, forward it to fraud@mail.sdsu.edu. Please include the full header. If you need assistance with sending a message with full headers, please see the full header instruction page.
Spam
Anyone who has been using e-mail over the past several years cannot have missed the incredible increase in the amount of spam. Phishing e-mail, attempting to snare the unwary into compromising their identities, also rides the flood of unwanted, unwelcome e-mail. On average, the existing mail.sdsu.edu server intercepts and blocks 188,700 unwanted e-mail messages a day. As the keepers of mail.sdsu.edu, our goal is to shield SDSU faculty and staff from malicious or junk e-mail, allowing you to concentrate on the legitimate messages you need to teach, research, conduct business and share information.
We use commercial-grade filters to automatically examine all incoming message. There are many ways in which an e-mail message may be identified as spam. This includes identifying specific words in the "From" field, the text of the body of the message, or the "Subject". Suspicious e-mail addresses can also be identified, and combinations of these elements used to reduce spam. The filters and countermeasures are constantly updated to catch the newest wave of spam. When a message has been identified as spam, it is marked as {SPAM} and delivered to your Inbox. If you turn your Junk Filter on, the {SPAM} will be delivered to your Junk Mail Box. There you can check messages tagged as {SPAM} to see if there are any that you want to keep.
A small percentage of legitimate e-mails will trigger the spam filter or other countermeasures, and never be delivered. The sender will never know that their message was not delivered, and the recipient will never know that the e-mail was sent. If you think this has happened, please send an e-mail to postmaster@mail.sdsu.edu or contact the ETS Help Desk at 4-5261. We will try to locate the lost e-mail and correct the error condition that caused it to be marked as spam.
For detailed information about personal spam filters including configuration guides for Eudora, Outlook, and Netscape for use on mail.sdsu.edu, see the Spam Filtering section.
Unfortunately, no anti-spam software is perfect, so please report messages that have been incorrectly marked or not marked as spam.
Spam Filtering on mail.sdsu.edu
We are always looking into ways of limiting spam. For now, please send any unsolicited e-mail you receive to: spam@mail.sdsu.edu. Please include the full header. The system will identify spam messages, and tag the subject line with {SPAM}; these messages will be delivered to your Inbox.
Reporting Spam
Please inform us of any e-mail incorrectly marked as spam, and legitimate spam e-mail that was not flagged as spam. Your feedback will help us improve the anti-spam system.
Always forward spam messages with full headers. If you need assistance with sending a message with full headers, please see the full header instruction page.
Reporting E-mail Incorrectly Marked as Spam
Spam scoring is not perfect. If you received a legitimate message that was mislabeled as spam with {SPAM} appearing in the subject line, please forward the message with full headers to: notspam@mail.sdsu.edu
Reporting Spam that Was Not Labeled as Spam
Spammers continue to develop ways to avert Spam filters. If you received a message that you believe is Spam and it was not labeled with {SPAM} appearing in the subject line, please forward the message with full headers to: spam@mail.sdsu.edu
E-mail Quota
In order to effectively manage storage resources and maintain system performance, SDSU enforces an initial mail quota of 150 megabytes for faculty and staff accounts. With Webmail, you can view your total allocated storage quota, and the amount currently used, in the status bar at the top of the Mail page.
You are responsible for keeping your account under quota. If you reach the quota limit, you will not be able to receive e-mail until you either move or delete enough e-mail out of your account to bring your account back under quota. E-mail and attachments in all your folders including the Sent, Draft, Junk Mail, and Trash folders count towards your quota.
If you reach 100% e-mail storage capacity, incoming e-mail will be queued. If space becomes available, e-mail stored in that queue will be delivered. An e-mail warning will be sent indicating you are over quota and messages can no longer be delivered. No notification will be sent to the sender.
To resolve your quota issue, you should go to Webmail and delete any unneeded messages and then empty the trash. If you use a POP client such as Entourage, Apple Mail, Outlook or Thunderbird, you should configure your client to remove messages from the server after 7 days. If you have performed the above steps and you are still having quota issues, you can send a request to increase your quota to etshelpdesk@mail.sdsu.edu.
Majordomo Mailing List Guidelines
Majordomo mailing lists are available to SDSU faculty and staff. Majordomo is an automated system which allows users to subscribe and unsubscribe to mailing lists, and to retrieve files from list archives. You interact with the Majordomo software by sending it commands via e-mail. Majordomo guidelines:
List Use
Majordomo mailing lists created on lists.sdsu.edu are for university-related functions only. These lists are subject to approval by UCO.
Messages:
Messages may be up to 1MB but should have limited size, number and frequency depending on the size of the list. In order to minimize the workload that large messages sent to many users on a list can cause the mail server, Web pages should be used instead of mail messages. This also prevents flooding users' mailboxes.
Messages sent to large subscriber lists should be distributed after 4 pm during off-peak hours. Each message must have a valid return address to accommodate subscriber requests and inquiries.
List Owner
SDSU faculty and staff are eligible to become list owners. Each mailing list must have at least one owner. The owner:
requests the initial creation of the list
maintains the list of subscribers (subscribers may not be added to a mailing list without their permission or knowledge)
maintains the list content
is responsible for renewing the list
is the main contact point for the list
List Name
Whenever possible, mailing list names should reflect list's purpose or department. The name must be as specific as possible to avoid conflicts with other departments or groups on campus.
We reserve the right to deny, suspend, or revoke Majordomo mailing list service at any time.
New Requests
Please review the SDSU Computing Acceptable Use policies and Majordomo Mailing List guidelines before submitting your request. The IT Security Office reserves the right to deny or revoke mailing lists at any time.
To request a mailing list, send an e-mail to requests@mail.sdsu.edu with following info:
List Name:
_________@lists.sdsu.edu
Description/Purpose:
Users may read this to learn about your list
Moderating:
Yes (All messages to the list must be approved by the list owner)
No (All messages to the list are automatically sent)
Posting:
List owner may post messages to the list (i.e. an announcements list)
Subscribers may post messages to the list (for a moderated list, the owner must approve the message)
Subscribe Policy:
Open (anyone can subscribe to the list)
Open+Confirm (an e-mail is sent to the user for confirmation)
Closed (owner must approve these requests)
Unsubscribe Policy:
Open (anyone can unsubscribe themselves from the list)
Closed (owner must approve these requests)
List Owner Information:
First Name
Middle Name
Last Name
Phone Number
E-mail Address
Department
Affiliation:
Faculty
Staff
List Owners
If you already have a mailing list and need assistance using it, please see the Majordomo FAQ.