As there has been quite some confusion about the switch to the new mailing system of the CPFS, I’d like to summarize how to configure your e-mail application to use the new service. Note that what follows describes the current status, and there might be future changes without prior notice.

General settings

  • Server names: The mail server is email.gwdg.de and can be accessed from anywhere, in particular over the Internet. It must be used when configuring your computer at home, your smartphone, notebook, tablet, iPod, whatever gadget.

  • Protocols: The mail system speaks different languages, or protocols, with the client applications. Each of these protocols has a name and a port number assigned to it. Here are the configuration details:

  • IMAPS: Port number 993 with SSL encryption and password authentication. Standard protocol for incoming mail, can be used with virtually any modern e-mail application like Thunderbird, Apple Mail, webOS Mail, Alpine, …

  • SMTP: Port number 587 with TLS encryption (called STARTTLS in Thunderbird) and password authentication. Standard protocol for outgoing mail, can be used with virtually any modern e-mail application like Thunderbird, Apple Mail, webOS Mail, Alpine, …

  • EWS: Port number 443 with SSL encryption and password authentication. Microsoft’s proprietary protocol for incoming and outgoing mail, can only be used with modern versions of Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail (Server type "Exchange" when setting up the latter, see also separate page).

  • POP3S: Port number 995 with SSL encryption and password authentication. Historically oldest protocol for incoming mail, to be used only if you have a single device for accessing your e-mail. (That means, don’t use this protocol anymore, please.)

  • Webmail: Automatically redirects to the appropriate web page with encrypted communication.

Remarks

  • For more instructions than just the server names and port numbers on how to set up clients please refer to the documentation of GWDG

  • Microsoft’s EWS protocol actually provides more functionality than just incoming and outgoing e-mail. You can maintain an address book and a calendar with it, and you can have access to the GWDG’s address book with it, to name a few. [No need to use that clumsy web interface for finding a colleague’s phone number anymore.]

  • However, this additional functionality is currently available only with either the Apple Mail/Calendar/Address Book combo or Microsoft Outlook (Macintosh and Windows PC). A workaround for non-EWS users (think Thunderbird users) is provided by DavMail, which serves as a gateway between the standard protocols CalDAV and CardDAV for calendaring and address book data and Microsoft’s proprietary EWS.

  • If you just need access to the institute’s address book and prefer standard LDAP over Microsoft’s EWS, have a look at this page.

Postfix configuration and logging

For sending automatic system-generated messages, the Macintosh needs postfix configured properly. The minimum amendment to the default configuration in /etc/postfix/main.cf for macmini03 for example are the lines

# null client config
#
myhostname = macmini03.cpfs.mpg.de
myorigin = $mydomain
relayhost = [sync.cpfs.mpg.de]
mydestination =

Don’t forget to ask the IT boys to permit anonymous SMTP connections from the Mac. Starting postfix manually by typing postfix start or similar is unnecessary – macOS runs postfix on-demand automatically.

To test, first turn on smtp logging to the current terminal with

sudo log stream --predicate  '(process == "smtpd") || (process == "smtp")' --info

then use another terminal and send a testmail like

echo there | mail -s hi bs@cpfs.mpg.de

(in this example to me). Output should be something like this:

Filtering the log data using "process == "smtpd" OR process == "smtp""
Timestamp                       Thread     Type        Activity             PID    TTL  
2021-09-29 11:33:22.562415+0200 0x15bda7   Activity    0x9b1b0              89539  0    smtp: (libsystem_info.dylib) Retrieve User by Name
2021-09-29 11:33:22.562838+0200 0x15bda7   Activity    0x9b1b1              89539  0    smtp: (libsystem_info.dylib) Retrieve User by Name
2021-09-29 11:33:22.563066+0200 0x15bda7   Activity    0x9b1b2              89539  0    smtp: (libsystem_info.dylib) Retrieve Group by Name
2021-09-29 11:33:22.563570+0200 0x15bda7   Activity    0x9b1b3              89539  0    smtp: (libsystem_info.dylib) Resolve user group list
2021-09-29 11:33:22.563941+0200 0x15bda7   Activity    0x9b1b4              89539  0    smtp: (libsystem_info.dylib) Retrieve service by name
2021-09-29 11:33:22.607933+0200 0x15bda7   Info        0x0                  89539  0    smtp: 863B92C40BE: to=<bs@cpfs.mpg.de>, relay=sync.cpfs.mpg.de[141.5.14.4]:25, delay=0.07, delays=0.02/0.01/0.02/0.03, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 9BF0C4012D)